


The Surprising Adventures of Sun Wukong

by Moorishflower



Series: The Trickster Saga [3]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-13
Updated: 2010-08-13
Packaged: 2017-10-11 01:58:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 40,401
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/107066
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Moorishflower/pseuds/Moorishflower
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Castiel, Gabriel, and the brothers Winchester search for some biblical artifacts.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Where In The World Is Gabriel?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Dean, Sam, and Castiel go searching for an archangel, find him in the most unlikely place, and learn about inevitability and biblical artifacts.

  
When an archangel doesn't want to be found then, generally speaking, they can't be found. They're like cats (and the simile is especially apt in the case of this _particular_ archangel): they come to you when they want attention. If they don't want attention, then you can fuck off.

It has been three weeks since Gabriel made a run for it, leaving Dean, Sam, and one befuddled angel alone in a fancy motel room with a couple empty shot glasses and not much else to go on. Since then, Castiel has become like a man possessed, a phrase that no hunter ever uses lightly (considering the implications), but this situation has gone progressively from 'bad' to 'worse' to 'if I never see Castiel's intense baby blues ever again it will be too soon.'

That's an exaggeration. But he _is_ getting kind of unbearable.

"Gabriel doesn't _want_ to be found," Sam protests. This is something Dean has been trying to convince Castiel of for three weeks. Sam is only saying it because, at this point, there's a distinct lack of anything else to say.

They're in Ravenna, Ohio; they've rented a room at the Econo Lodge, and they're getting their money's worth. Which is to say, not much – one corner of the bathroom is black with mold, and every time Sam opens the door his eyes are inevitably drawn there. He skirts around it like a frightened deer. Dean thinks it's pretty funny, but he avoids it, too. He thinks he remembers reading about some kind of mold spore that gets into your brain and then grows there and eventually kills you, and he's not willing to take the chance.

Attempts to get Sam to clean it have so far failed.

"We should be looking for those weapons he mentioned," Dean offers. Dean is sitting on the edge of his shitty twin bed, diligently sharpening a silver knife. The whetstone makes a weird sound against the blade, but neither he nor Sam respond to it anymore. It's become commonplace.

Sam is lying on his own bed, hands folded behind his head. His feet hang over the edge of the mattress. He hasn't washed his hair in a day, so it's knotted and tangled against the pillowcase. Dean's pretty sure Sam has a bottle of conditioner that he's hidden somewhere. He just has to find it.

"We have no idea where to start. I mean, the Colt is one of them, obviously. I guess the design came from _somewhere_. Based on one of these other weapons?"

"Which means we're looking for things that can kill demons. Which asks the question, how is that going to help when we already know that the Colt doesn't work?"

Sam shrugs. It's an awkward-looking movement. Dean draws the whetstone down the edge of the blade, hating the fact that the knife is as sharp as it's going to get, that all their guns are polished, that the stakes have been whittled down to fine points. There is nothing left to do except sit and _think_, which, as far as plans go, is providing them with a fat lot of _nothing_ to go on.

Dean curls his fingers around the whetstone, and then tosses it, without looking, into his open bag a few feet away. That leaves him with the knife, which isn't exactly the sort of thing you just throw around. He glares at it. The knife doesn't respond.

"This sucks," he says. Sam makes a quiet noise of agreement. The room feels too small, too hot. Dean doesn't want to admit it, but he kind of misses the perfectly regulated airflow of the Ritz-Carlton, the comfortable beds, the utter lack of responsibility. They hadn't even needed to get their own _food_, for fuck's sake. You never know what you're missing until it's gone, he guesses.

Sam twitches. It's a movement Dean has come to associate with approaching Heavenly forces, so he automatically turns his head towards the door, expectant. Not even a minute later, said door opens and Castiel steps inside. Since the Ritz-Carlton, he's been a little…off. This includes his aim, on bad days. Last week Dean gave their location as Akron, and Castiel had ended up in some place called 'Mogadore.' He's got a lot on his mind. Dean doesn't think much of it. If something's wrong, Castiel will tell them himself, eventually.

"I have found a lead," Castiel says. There's excitement in his voice. Dean's always surprised whenever Castiel actually sounds, even if it's only for a moment, like he's _human_. It's becoming more frequent, as of late…Castiel trying on sounds and gestures like a kid trying on their parents' clothes. The other day, he had actually snapped his fingers. He hadn't done it again (probably because Dean and Sam had stared at him like he'd been insane), but it was something.

"Look at you, playing detective," Dean mutters, and taps the flat of the knife against his thigh. The repetition is soothing. "Alright, Cas. For the hundredth time…lay it on us."

Castiel tilts his head. He still doesn't understand hyperbole – to him, this has only been the _eighth_ time that he's come to them with a potential 'lead.' For Dean and Sam it actually feels like the thousandth, but he guesses that a hundred is a good compromise. Sam turns over on his bed, tucking one hand underneath his pillow and laying the other across his eyes, blocking out the minimal amount of light that sneaks in through the room's singular window.

"I believe I have located something that will tell us where Gabriel has hidden himself."

Sam lifts his head up. His hair is completely flat on one side of his head, bunched up and weird on the other. Dean pats his pockets for his cell phone, but when those turn out empty (save for a gum wrapper and three quarters) he remembers that the phone is on the nightstand, which is a good foot and a half away. He doesn't feel like moving that far. As it turns out, Ravenna had been the home of a very pissed-off yeti, which he and Sam had needed to corner and set fire to. It's gotten to the point where neither of them ever questioned why a yeti was lurking around the Ravenna town hall in the first place; they just did their job and moved on. A job which had involved a lot of getting picked up and thrown around like a rag doll, in Dean's case, and getting rabbit punched in the sternum in Sam's.

"Some_thing_?" Sam repeats. He sounds skeptical. Castiel doesn't even blink.

"It is a thing, yes."

"What, like…one of those mechanical fortune tellers?"

Dean snorts. When he glances his brother's way, Sam looks weirdly grateful. Dean supposes they haven't really been much in the way of 'brotherly' lately. The Apocalypse will do that to you.

"I do not understand."

"Of course you don't," Dean sighs, and then rolls over. The movement catches Castiel's attention – he crosses the room and perches at the foot of Dean's bed like a giant, tan owl, unblinking and still.

"Then _tell_ us," Sam says. "Before Hell freezes over, please."

"No Hell jokes," Dean mutters. Sam makes an apologetic noise and then sort of slaps at his pillow. Dean imagines it's because he can't actively slap Castiel. The angel in question sways away from the sudden movement, which means he sort of sways _towards_ Dean. Castiel smells like cologne, and Dean takes a deep breath, trying to place it. Since when does Cas wear cologne? Since when has he even known what cologne was _for_?

"It is a demon," Castiel says, and Sam curls his fingers into his pillowcase as Dean sits up, alarmed. "With a vested interest in the survival of humanity. You have met before."

Gee, that's a tough one. Dean spends all of ten seconds thinking on it before he comes to a conclusion. "Crowley."

"Yes. It is located nearby."

Dean eyes Castiel's neck. At least this explains the cologne.

***

As it turns out, Castiel's idea of 'nearby' is vastly different from the rest of the world's. They end up driving for almost half an hour before Cas says they've arrived. Of course, considering Crowley's extravagant sense of style, that isn't hard to tell in the first place - they've basically driven thirty minutes through rural Ohio to reach a mansion in the middle of nowhere.

Dean spends the whole ride glancing furtively at Castiel, then back to the road. Wash, rinse, and repeat. Sam has traveled through the realm of wanting to annoy his brother by this point, and he really wishes they would just make out and get it over with already.

Maybe if he brings it up often enough something will happen…progress through annoyance. He sort of likes the sound of that.

"Hey Dean," he tries. "Do you remember that time when I was thirteen, and I walked in on you – "

"_Oh look_, we're here. Everybody out of the car."

If looks could kill…well, Sam would be dead a hundred times over by now, but seriously, the glare Dean gives him is _truly_ impressive. Castiel just looks confused. He's improving – Sam can tell the difference between 'confused' and 'upset' at this point. He ought to remember to tell Castiel later, since it's probably a lot like training a puppy. Reinforcement and encouragement are key.

"Let us just…get this over with," Castiel murmurs. "I am intensely uncomfortable."

As they get closer to the building, the reason _why_ Cas feels uncomfortable becomes more apparent: it has been decorated, not with gargoyles and cherubs, as would be typical, but with stone carvings of screaming human faces. Dean flinches away from them. Sam looks closer, despite how creepy the carvings are, and realizes that they aren't the stylistic representations of humans that the Romans or Greeks would have created, but are imperfect, each one different. One guy has a double chin, and to his right there's the image of a woman with a large mole on her cheek.

They're carvings of people suffering in Hell.

Sam does his best to turn his gaze away from them. In a rare display of (rather obvious) compassion, Castiel places himself between Dean and the mansion, partially shielding him from the carvings' accusing, pained eyes.

"This building is not real," Castiel says quietly. Sam's no expert, but he's pretty sure the angel is trying to sound soothing. It's a new tone for him, but Sam thinks he's managing pretty well. "It is merely a construct."

"Well, _yeah_, Cas, that's what a building _is_."

"I think he means in a more metaphysical context," Sam offers. Castiel looks grateful while Dean makes a face like it pains him to even listen to them talk. "The building's here, but it isn't supposed to be. And when we leave, it'll disappear again."

"I believe that is the demon's intent."

"Huh," Dean says. "Fake building. Awesome."

Sam takes it upon himself to knock on the door – there is no doorbell, only an old-fashioned knocker, also disturbing in its form: another screaming face, though this one is inhuman, features stretched beyond human capacity. The mouth itself is the knocker, and when Sam fits his hand through it the sharpened teeth graze against his knuckles.

After he knocks, it only takes a moment for the door to open, and a man wearing a suit and an earpiece ushers them inside. His hair is neatly slicked, and Sam can see the shape of a gun at his hip.

His eyes are black. Sam can smell him, potent and iron-tainted. He bites his bottom lip and forces the longing down somewhere deep inside himself, focusing instead on Dean's obvious distress. Even Castiel's closeness doesn't seem to be helping as much as it had outside.

"Mister Crowley will see you," the demon says. Sam wonders who this guy was, before he found himself in the wrong place at the wrong time. He's got broad shoulders – did he do something with his hands? Had he worked construction, carpentry, maybe plumbing? Or maybe Sam is totally wrong, and the guy worked in an office, printing off reports, working with money. Maybe he'd been a banker. There is no longer any way to tell – it's at the point where it would be more merciful if the demon were all that's left. Being ridden like that…Sam wouldn't wish it on anyone.

The demon leads them through the mansion, a place that's so painfully ornate that Sam and Dean make certain to give every delicate-looking vase, sculpture and curio a wide berth. Neither of them is used to this much opulence, but Castiel seems perfectly at ease. He brushes past said valuables without paying much attention to any of them, and it's like watching a deer pass through grass – nothing is disturbed. Dean, in particular, watches the process with fascination as they are led down the halls. Sam is more interested in Crowley's unusual taste in art – there are an awful lot of what looks like painted scenes from Dante's 'Inferno,' lining hallway after hallway. It's like being taken through a gallery.

Dean averts his eyes from all of them. Sam and Castiel draw him along through occasional touch – Sam's hand on his shoulder, Castiel's hovering awkwardly at the small of Dean's back. And through it all, the demon acts as their guide, silent and menacing.

Eventually, they are led to a huge pair of doors, decorated in a style that Sam thinks would be more appropriate for a church in the eighteen hundreds: they're all gold leaf and semi-precious stones outlining the handles, weird mosaic depictions of creatures that Sam suspects might be hell hounds. It's like Salvador Dali got a hold of a picture of a pitbull and went nuts.

The demon knocks three times, listens for a moment, and then nods and stands off to the side, keeping his gaze trained on Castiel. Sam supposes it's the angel, not them, who is the greatest threat here. Castiel stares stonily back.

"Mister Crowley is waiting," the demon says.

"Oh, wouldn't want _that_." Sam nudges a hand against Dean's side, a subtle comfort. If his brother were a dog, his hackles would be raised. Now, though, some of the tension bleeds out of him. "Like Cas said, let's just get this over with."

Sam nods, and grabs the door's handles (thankfully shaped like nothing more than what they are), and pulls as hard as he can. The doors swing silently open, moving on surprisingly well-oiled hinges (nothing but the best for Crowley, he supposes), and the demon suffers them to pass by unmolested, although he flinches when Sam slants a glance his way.

_Thirsty._ He shakes his head, and the doors swing shut behind them.

"Aw, _fuck_. And here I thought I was being pretty clear when I said _don't try to find me_. Epic listening _fail_, little bro."

The doors don't lead to a ballroom, as might be expected, nor to a dining room, but rather to a positively _palatial_ bathroom. The sort of bathroom you'd expect a king or queen to have. Every surface is made of precious materials – the sinks look like they've been carved from jade, the floor tiles from onyx, the faucets look like they might be white gold, and the mirrors are bordered with decorative frames of diamonds and rubies. It's a wild, chaotic splash of color and opulence, and it takes Sam a few minutes to recognize that it's the voice, not the splendor of the room, that he could be paying attention to.

Sitting in the white marble tub is Gabriel. His arms are slung carelessly over the edges, everything below the waist invisible beneath a thick cloud of oils and bubbles. It figures that he's the type to take a bubble bath. Sam wonders what the oils smell like – he's too far away to tell. Something exotic, maybe. Gabriel doesn't seem the type to prefer flowery scents.

"Holy shit," Dean swears, and turns his back on the whole scene. Sam's brain stutters back into gear, and he realizes why – Gabriel is in the tub, yes, and very obviously naked, but sitting across from him, _in the same tub_, is Crowley.

It isn't enough that he stole the Colt. Now he's stealing their (_Sam's_) archangel.  
Castiel and Crowley are the only ones who don't appear at all fazed. They stare at each other from across the room, Castiel perplexed (with a tinge of hostility and, weirdest of all, gratefulness) and Crowley coolly detached.

"As promised," Crowley murmurs, and Sam can see his legs moving under the water. A moment later Gabriel twitches, looking desperately unamused.

"_Alright_. Everybody _out_. And that means you, too, you double-crossing little _snake_."

Crowley's mouth curls up; he looks like a satisfied cat. "As you wish. I wouldn't presume to disobey orders in your own home, darling. Although, I must say…" He swings his gaze around, honing in on Castiel, and then traveling over him, to Dean, before finally coming to rest on Sam. "You three have rather poor timing. Another fifteen minutes would have sufficed."

"Oh God," Dean says faintly, and Castiel automatically glances at him, then back again. Hope springs eternal, Sam supposes.

Luckily, Dean's back is turned. Unluckily, Sam and Castiel are still facing the tub when Crowley shrugs, then unashamedly stands up and steps out of the tub, feet sinking into a plush-looking bathmat laid on the onyx tiles. Castiel, again, seems unaffected – Sam, however, gets to see the little _look_ that Gabriel throws Crowley's way, when he thinks the demon won't notice. A secretive, wanting sort of look.

Sam's never quite understood the phrase 'seeing red' before. He understands the sentiment, of course, has been in a position to feel that sort of anger, but it's never been _red_…only cold, calculated black.

He understands it now.

"Outside," he manages to grit out, and roughly ushers Dean from the bathroom. Castiel follows, less because he wants to and more because Sam doesn't give him a choice. The demon guard outside has vanished, something Sam is grateful for. It means he can lay his head against the cool wall beside the doors, letting it leech some of the heat out of him. He's _angry_. He's angry all the time, of course, but this is different. This is anger brought on by a specific event. A specific _person_.

If they can't convince Gabriel to help them, so help him but he's going to murder the son of a bitch.

"Hey, uh, Sammy, not that I object to us getting out of there, but…what was _that_ all about?"

Sam shrugs, angrily. It's a full-body rage – even the smallest movement feels hot and wound too-tight.

"Anger is understandable," Castiel says. He sounds like he might be trying to be soothing. "Gabriel is consorting with demons. I find myself…disappointed in his actions."

"I don't think 'consorting' is the best word, Cas. Try, I dunno, _fucking_."

Sam gently bangs his head against the cold wall. It doesn't help. If anything, it makes him angrier.

And that's how Crowley (swaddled in the world's most comfortable-looking bathrobe) finds them: Dean and Castiel trying to determine whether 'consorting' implies an intimate relationship, and Sam slowly trying to drill a hole through the wall with his forehead.

***

"No thanks," Dean says, and pushes the tea tray towards Sam, instead. An honest to God _tea tray_. Of course, it's loaded up with cookies and booze as well as like fifteen different kinds of tea, but still. _Tea tray_.

Crowley gives him a look that translates roughly to 'you amount to less than the dirt I have scraped off of my shoes every day,' then turns his attention to Castiel.

"I met Gabriel in nineteen thirty-six," he says fondly. "I was visiting the Rheinland, checking up on one Mister Adolf Hitler, making sure things were going smoothly…and Gabriel happened to be there. Preparing to play one of his little jokes on young Adolf. It would have proved…rather messy, and so I convinced him to join me for dinner, instead. We have continued to meet, on and off, for the past seventy years or so. Not as often as we once did, of course…I have my job, and Gabriel has his…whatever he does."

It's the weirdest tea party Dean has ever witnessed (and that includes that fucked up kid's book their dad tried to read them when Sam was still a little toddler): He, Castiel, and Sam are all seated in huge, squashy armchairs arranged in a half-circle in front of this _massive_ unlit fireplace. Crowley is seated off to the side, which Dean hadn't been expecting – the dubious honor of being the figurehead of their little luncheon is Castiel, who holds a cup of tea in his lap (mostly because he hadn't refused it quick enough). Dean is in a position to hate demons more than most, but even he's impressed by the total subservience of Crowley's (for lack of a better term) henchmen. They're quick, efficient, and, most of all, _quiet_. He barely notices they're there, unless, of course, they're shoving tea at him.

Sam sits on Castiel's right, and he hasn't stopped glaring at Crowley for more than ten minutes, now. If he keeps it up he's going to develop a permanent facial tick, not that he seems to care. A side effect, maybe, of seeing the demon naked.

Or else seeing _Gabriel_ naked. Or some combination of the two. Dean isn't stupid, and he isn't blind. He doesn't like where this _thing_ between Sam and the archangel is heading, hasn't liked it since Sam made that monumentally stupid offer in the hotel, but he doesn't see how he can stop it. If it can be stopped at all. He's no big believer in destiny, and all of Heaven knows it by now, but there's a difference between fate and the inevitable. One is guided by all-knowing hands, and the other is…

Well, the other is Sam and Gabriel, apparently.

"Have some tea, before it gets cold." Castiel raises his cup halfway to his mouth, and then lowers it again. Ever since Famine he's been wary of food, and every drink besides alcohol. Every time Dean eats a cheeseburger in front of him he looks nauseous and sad. Even when Gabriel had them trapped, Dean had tried to avoid eating with him in the room.

"Well," Crowley murmurs. "I suppose we ought to get down to business, before my esteemed companion makes his grand reappearance. Gabriel has seen fit to tell you of the existence of other weapons, has he not? Similar in ability, if not in design, to the Colt."

"He might have mentioned it," Sam grumbles. It looks like he's still trying to make Crowley's head explode using the power of his mind. Dean glares at him over the tea tray until Sam takes a deep, lingering breath and then casts his gaze off to the side.

Crowley clasps his hands in his lap, leaning forward a bit. He's still wearing his bathrobe, and Dean does his best to avoid looking down. "There were seven, originally. Every religion has its demons, you understand, and so there was a period in history when it was…rather _fashionable_ for temples to display weapons with demon-killing capabilities. The vast majority of them were frauds, of course. But there were seven that were not." The long, pale fingers steeple, and Crowley leans back again. "Of course, you only have to worry about two of them. The rest are inconsequential. Lost to the ravages of time."

Dean's brows furrow. "I would think the more the merrier. Can't have too many demon-killing weapons, right?"

"On the contrary. You will find it impossible to retrieve all but two. As I said, the others have been…lost. And there are other artifacts you should be concerning yourselves with."

Sam's interest is peaked, Dean can see it – he sways forward, his scowl lessening. "Artifacts?" Christ. Trust his brother to get all hot for something bound to be ancient and dusty. Crowley, though, seems pleased.

"I happen to know the location of one. Gabriel knows the location of yet another. It is, of course, his _choice_ as to whether he tells you…"

"Stop the presses, people, I'm here."

Sam's head jerks around so fast Dean is surprised he doesn't get whiplash. Castiel and Crowley follow the line of his gaze to the doorway, where Gabriel, now significantly less naked (thank God) is leaning.

_Ah,_ Dean thinks. _Inevitability._

"No need to go divulging _all_ of my secrets," Gabriel chastises. His feet are bare, and he steps light and quick across the cherrywood floor until he's leaning over Crowley's shoulder. Sam's expression is the kind that would frighten small children – his eyes are thunderclouds. His hands clench and unclench against the arms of his chair, but he doesn't get up. Dean's impressed with his restraint.

"The demon was about to provide us with information," Castiel says, disapprovingly. The look that Crowley slants his way is viciously acidic.

"And now _I'm_ going to be providing it. That okay with you, bro?"

Castiel settles back in his chair, still holding his cup of tea, like a safety blanket. Gabriel nods.

"Fine. It was, let's see, early fifteen hundreds. Fifteen or sixteen, doesn't really matter. I'd had a _lot_ to drink, so I was a bit, y'know." Gabriel wiggles his hand in a way that's reminiscent of a beached fish. "Anyways, long story short, I didn't want the responsibility anymore, so I hid the Horn."

"I do not understand," Castiel says (neither does Dean, but he's not going to say anything), and Gabriel sighs.

"The _Horn_. You know. The Horn of the Apocalypse. I left it in fifteen-sixteen. I think I thought it was funny at the time."

Castiel's expression becomes almost as thunderous as Sam's. Dean holds up his hands in an attempt to stave off a situation that promises to be both violent and unhelpful in the long run.

"Woah," he says. "Hold on, explain what this horn thing is before someone gets murdered. _Please_."

"Gabriel's Horn," Sam murmurs. Dean glances at him, takes one look at his reverent (and yet still angry, that's what he calls multitasking) expression, and knows he's in for the sort of explanation that's going to involve Wikipedia articles and maybe diagrams, and Sam gushing the whole time. "The Horn that's supposed to mark the start of the Apocalypse."

"That's bad advertising, right there."

Sam shushes him. "There was never any proof there was an actual _horn_, though. It was mentioned in Thessalonians, but most people think of it as a sort of…metaphor."

"Nope," Gabriel says cheerfully. "I was supposed to blow it. Never did. Not the point, though. It's useful for more than just announcing the Apocalypse. Call it a dinner bell, if you want. I blow it, people come running."

"And by 'people' you mean…"

Gabriel rolls his shoulders. "Well, Lucifer, for one. All the angels. When it was made, we were all trained to rally around it for the Last Days. Of course, then Michael started getting distant, and Zachariah took charge, and it was a huge mess. So when I left, I took it with me. Stupid me, I thought they'd hold off the End until I brought it back. Shows how well I know my family."

"You are a disappointment," Castiel sighs. Gabriel ignores him.

"Anyways, I've been thinking. I like you kids."

"I'm going to go out on a limb and say that you like Sam more than me," Dean mutters. Sam doesn't hear him, but Castiel blinks, and Gabriel grins slow, satisfied acknowledgement.

"And Crowley and I have been talking…Well, more than talking, but that isn't the point. The point is, I'm going to help you. It'll be like an _adventure_. And at the end, we might get to save the world! Fun, huh?"

Sam leans forward, reaching for the tea tray. More specifically, reaching for the _booze_.

It's a good idea, so Dean does the same. They have a brotherly bonding moment, aiming for the same expensive bottle of scotch. Sam gets it first. Dean doesn't begrudge him that.

Castiel raises his tea, and then lowers it again.

"I do not understand," he says again, and Dean and Sam take a shot.

***

Sam waits in the fake mansion's massive dining room.

Dean, Castiel and Gabriel are all still inside what he's been calling the 'tea room' (which, he has been told, is entirely Gabriel's work, but the fact that it all isn't real reveals more about the archangel than he would probably care for). They'll come out, eventually, but for the time being Sam doesn't want to see Gabriel's face. Not when Crowley is still sitting smugly nearby. Instead, he spends these few minutes of quiet running his fingers over chairs, tables, curios. He lingers over a bronze statue of a snake, coiled like a spring in the center of the dining room table. When he touches it, it moves as easily as if it were made of papier-mâché.

"Gabriel's whims designed this place," comes a voice from behind him, and Sam turns to see the person he _least_ wants to interact with. Crowley, at this point, represents everything that he hates and, more importantly, everything that he does not have. "However, 'twas mine that furnished it. Most of what you see is real, only…elsewhere."

Crowley keeps his hands behind his back, and Sam is thankful that he doesn't come any closer. He draws back from the snake, ancient and patient looking.

"What do you want?"

"To talk. I promise you, my intentions are pure."

"The last time I trusted a demon I started the Apocalypse. I'm not about to make that mistake again."

Crowley's brows arch. "Then will you trust in Gabriel? He has, after all, seen fit to call me his confidant. Or…is that the root of the problem?"

Sam turns his shoulder towards the demon, and Crowley smiles. It is worth noting that it is very, very, far from being a kind smile.

"Oh, _Sam_. And here I thought your life couldn't get any worse. Gabriel is, shall we say, not the _settling_ type. Better to compare him to a hummingbird – attracted to bright colors and loud noises, but the fact that he stops and rests upon you for a moment means very little in the grand scheme of things. Only that, for the moment, he finds you to be both interesting and a challenge, much like myself."

"I'm nothing like you."

"No," Crowley sighs. "Not yet, you aren't. But jealousy is an ugly thing. Keep it up, and we'll have you running the crossroads in no time. That is, if Lucifer doesn't get to you first. You _do_ know he's the sort to make promises, yes? Promises he has no intention of keeping. If Gabriel's name does happen to come up, I will thank you to continue saying 'no.' I've grown…fond of him."

Sam glowers, and turns towards the door. He can hear, distantly, the sound of Dean calling his name. He goes, without thinking, because he wants to be away from Crowley, and closer to Dean. They haven't fought in weeks – this thing, with Gabriel, has given them purpose again.

Crowley follows him all the way to the front door, and then leans there, watching as Sam steps outside.

"Come find me when you've found the Horn, Sam Winchester," Crowley calls out. "I'll have something waiting for you. Something you need."

But when he turns back, to say (maybe) that there is nothing Crowley has that Sam will _ever_ need, he's gone. Crowley is gone, and the mansion with him. There's just a huge, dusty expanse of dead cornfield, and Sam is standing beside the Impala, which is parked, not in a driveway, but on the side of a long, equally dusty road. He feels a hand on his shoulder and turns, expecting Dean.

It's Gabriel.

"Ready to go, Sammy? We're in for quite a ride."

Sam swallows. His throat clicks, dry as the cornfield behind them.

"Yeah," he says. "I'm ready."


	2. The Horn of the Apocalypse

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Dean, Sam, Castiel, and Gabriel go time-traveling, and there are deep, brotherly discussions (also, kissing).

  
The Impala has become a cage.

"Alright, Castiel's turn. Just like I told you, little bro."

Castiel hasn't yet mastered the art of rolling his eyes, but if he had, he would be doing it now. He obediently glances out the window, gaze zeroing in on something in the distance. When he speaks, the words are stilted and awkward. Dean gets the impression that he feels pretty foolish saying them, and so reaches back in order to gently pat Castiel's knee. "I spy with my little eye…"

"Cows."

"I did not…"

"Yeah, but you're thinking of cows. _Next_."

Not a literal cage, of course (considering who's in the car, that sort of distinction has to be made), but Gabriel has been forcing them to play I Spy for three hours, now. For three hours before that it was Twenty Questions, and before _that_ it was sing-alongs. Fortunately, no one in the car is actually tone deaf, and it means that Dean finally got to hear Sam singing along with the Beatles while he was awake. Castiel, as it turns out, has a pleasing tenor, and Dean's still surprised at how…_appealing_ it was.

In total, they have been driving for about twelve hours. The gas gauge hovers on the cusp of empty, but never clicks over that final centimeter. The landscape flying past them is always exactly the same – there are fenced-in fields that contain cows, horses, or sheep, and there are farmhouses, and there are grain silos. There are never any people, or any other cars, and Dean has started to notice that the horses, cows and sheep they keep driving by all look suspiciously familiar.

Whenever he or Sam gets hungry, Gabriel just snaps his fingers and they have food. Granted, it's nowhere near as fancy as the stuff Gabriel provided them with in the hotel, but Dean isn't about to ask for foie gras when he has a perfectly good Big Mac with fries and a Coke. Castiel distracts himself from the smell of beef by catering to Gabriel's demands for entertainment, and it's hard to tell which is unhealthier for him – the posttraumatic stress or the enabling. Eventually he'll have to deal with those memories of being helpless, a slave to his vessel, but for now he's ascribing to the patented Winchester Method: repress, repress, repress.

"Alright, Sam's turn. Sammy?"

Sam jerks, startled awake, and knocks his head against the window. He rubs the sore spot, blinking muzzily while Dean muffles his laughter in the palm of his hand.

"I spy," Sam says automatically, "an annoying asshole." It's been his response for the last ten or so turns. And, like clockwork, Gabriel leans forward and brushes his fingertips over the back of Sam's neck. His brother shivers, and Dean looks away.

"Yeah, but you still love me," Gabriel murmurs. Dean doesn't like the tone of his voice, possessive and wanting. He _especially_ doesn't like the way Gabriel lingers there, fingers playing with Sam's hair. It's creepy. It's _weird_. So Dean, like Sam had once done in a lonely room in a hospital, makes an executive decision.

Dean slams on the breaks so hard it even startles Castiel, who jerks forward and then regains his equilibrium with flustered quickness.

"Alright. We have been driving for _twelve hours_, douchebag. _Twelve_. Now either you put on your big girl panties, admit you fucked up, and take us to the Horn, or else we'll find some _other_ way to save the world." He pauses. "Which you haven't even _explained_, by the way. How's a stupid trumpet supposed to help us kill Lucifer? Christ, this is just going to turn into one long wild goose chase, isn't it?"

Both Sam and Gabriel stare at him. Castiel appears to be smoothing out his coat, but Dean catches the faint curve of his lips, barely a flicker, and then gone again. Castiel _smiling_. Something in Dean's chest lurches – there hasn't been a lot of time to talk about what happened between them in the hospital, when Cas was in pain and Dean was worried out of his mind for his brother and for a creature that, by all rights, should never have been hurt in the first place. In the hotel, Dean was too stir-crazy to even think about having a serious talk where the topic wasn't 'how to get out,' and then it was _Cas_ who was the driven one, trying to find Gabriel. No, there hasn't been a lot of talking. Maybe that's something they ought to fix.

"I'm sick of you keeping us out of the loop," Dean continues, and Gabriel's expression closes off, becomes disturbingly neutral. He leans back, hands resting in his lap. There's something off about his eyes – Dean knows that they're green, but every so often he catches a glimpse of something that might be gold, or amber, Gabriel's eyes flashing in the sunlight. A reflection of the wheat fields, maybe?

"I was wondering when you'd snap," Gabriel murmurs, and he smiles, and the world is _gone_.

This time, Dean is being literal – the landscape outside has vanished, replaced by white snow, the kind you'd see on a faulty television. They're still sitting in the Impala, but Dean gets the impression that the car itself is no longer there – that the unattached interior is the only thing between them and endless static. Sam and Castiel sway towards their respective windows, expressions showing varying degrees of fascination.

Dean is managing to keep himself from hyperventilating only through sheer, unmitigated force of will.

"Don't worry about your car," Gabriel says, and some of the panic abates. "I just always wanted to do the whole Delorean thing. Loved that movie. But bringing an Impala back to the fifteen-hundreds wouldn't be the brightest idea."

"_What_?"

Gabriel's smile curls like a withered leaf. "We're going to get the Horn. That's what you wanted, isn't it?"

Dean wraps his fingers around the door handle (the one that, apparently, isn't there) and holds on for dear life. The fifteen-hundreds. More time traveling.

Hopefully, no one will end up dead.

***

They appear in a field, sans the interior of the Impala, which Sam can only hope (for Dean's sake, and for Gabriel's) means that it has been safely reattached to the rest of the car, and that there'll be no lasting damage when they get back. It's something like diving past the nine-foot mark in a pool, and then coming up for air – the static of the in-between place grows thinner, and colors begin to bleed through, until it's only a faint remnant of white that's left, and then nothing at all.

Sam is willing to admit that it's a very pretty field. It's spring, judging by the balmy temperature and the soft breeze, and flowers nod their pollen-heavy heads all around them (Castiel ends up with his face right next to a clump of wildflowers and sneezes irritably), and this is already far more pleasant than Sam's last experience with time travel…

But it's a field. And there aren't any buildings, roads, or _people_ in sight.

He tries to sit up, but a sudden wave of vertigo threatens to make him puke, so he stays on his side. He can hear Dean groaning miserably somewhere off to the left, so Sam rolls that way, with the hope that he'll eventually reach his brother and maybe convince him that spewing half-digested Big Mac all over the idyllic, picture-worthy field is the last thing he wants to do.

Instead, he bumps into Gabriel, and Sam forgets, briefly, about Dean.

At first he's terrified that Gabriel is dead – he's so still and quiet that he could be mistaken for a particularly detailed statue – but then the archangel's chest rises, one gigantic heave, and he starts breathing regularly again. His eyes open, pupils dilating into huge pools of black, then contracting again, until it seems like all Sam can see is the weird green-gold of Gabriel's irises.

"Hello gorgeous," Gabriel rasps, and Sam can't stop the rush of blood to his face, but he _can_ stop himself from glaring or making pithy comments. He can be the bigger man, even if all he can think about is Gabriel giving him percocet for Dean's wounds, Gabriel giving him a book on how to defeat ogres at the exact moment when they had _needed_ that information.

Gabriel sitting in that huge tub, arms slung over the white sides, chatting it up with a _demon_.

No wonder Dean doesn't trust him. Sam barely trusts _himself_ any more.

Sam rolls back, arms and legs spread, soaking in the sun. Gabriel sits up after another long moment of silence, slowly shaking his head - Castiel follows not long after, looking ruffled, but unhurt.

"I think I'm gonna hurl," Dean says, and Sam can see his jacket poking up over the tall grass. Castiel reaches across the short distance between them and places a hand on Dean's back, letting it rest there.

Gabriel runs a hand back through his hair. He looks just as tired and sick as Sam feels, and that's _bad_. "Look on the bright side! We're finally out of earshot!" Castiel stares at his brother – Sam's surprised Gabriel doesn't just spontaneously catch fire, that gaze is so intent.

"Explain," he says, and Gabriel rolls his shoulders, a few vertebrae popping back into place.

"Well…You remember your little tango with Hadraniel, right? Big guy, couple thousand wings, _roasted you like a poblano_?"

"Don't remind me," Sam groans, shoving himself into a sitting position and ignoring his painfully lurching stomach. "I still have nightmares about having my skin burned off."

Gabriel's focus turns to Sam, flitting from one point to another – shoulder, waist, neck – before finally allowing their eyes to meet. "Aw, kiddo," he says, so soft that Sam thinks Dean and Castiel probably aren't able to hear it. "I wouldn't let that happen. I like your skin right where it is."

It shouldn't be comforting – Sam is sick to death of angels fucking with their lives, healing them, hurting them, threatening to bring them back from the dead…He shouldn't feel as though Gabriel's promise is a _good_ thing, even if it means he gets to keep his skin. But…he does. It suffuses his body with warmth, and he has to look away. He focuses on the pain in his stomach – it's easier to deal with than this weird roller coaster of jealousy and attraction.

He's too self-aware, at this point, to pretend that it's anything else.

"What about big and nasty," Dean groans, and finally sits up. He sways to the left, and then leans over and spits, looking more than a little pissed off. Gabriel either doesn't notice, or doesn't care, which is fairly par for the course with him. "Something we should be worrying about?"

"_Shit_, yeah. What were you, special ed? Hadraniel's got more power in his pinky finger than Castiel here has in his whole Grace. No offense, bro."

"I am meant to take offense?"

"I retract my previous statement. Obviously _you're_ the brain-damaged one."

"Just _tell us_," Sam murmurs, and Gabriel clamps his mouth shut, eyeing Sam. "Just tell us what we should know."

Gabriel blinks, slow, interested. "He's looking for you, of course. Orders from above, I'm assuming, but you can't be too careful. So many of our Brothers and Sisters have Fallen…it's not like the weather. It's not the sort of thing you can predict."

"If Hadraniel Fell…" Castiel looks stricken. Sam takes this to mean that it isn't a good thing, and he's validated when Gabriel nods.

"Bingo. We'd be über-boned. Him and Lucifer, teaming up? We wouldn't have a snowball's chance."

"Go ahead," Dean grumbles, "keep filling us with confidence. So what do we _do_?"

Gabriel shrugged. "We hope he hasn't Fallen. Seriously, that's all we _can_ do. Lay low, find the holy relics, and keep our asses covered." He pauses, gnawing on his bottom lip, something that Sam has noticed he does whenever he's thinking hard. Sam automatically scoots a few feet away, never mind that the jarring movement makes his eyeballs feel like they're swimming.

"Don't you come near my ass," he warns. "I'll kick you in the balls, I swear."

"But it's such a _nice_ ass."

"Now I _know_ I'm gonna hurl," Dean groans, and, with Castiel's help, he hoists himself to his feet, then stumbles through the tall grass and the flowers until he's close enough to stick out his hand for Sam to grab. "Guess we better start walking." He throws a glare Gabriel's way, who's standing up, legs a bit wobbly as he brushes pollen and grass from his jeans. "Since _someone_ decided we shouldn't bring transportation. Or land near a _city_."

"Appearing near a city would have been unwise," Castiel interjects softly. "Our manner of dress would cause some…confusion."

Both Dean and Sam glance down at their jeans and t-shirts, then back up, to Castiel's trench coat, Gabriel's jacket. They look more than just out of place – they look alien. Sam purses his lips and grabs on to Dean's hand, hauling himself up. Castiel (and Gabriel, by proxy) has a good point. First they need clothes that are appropriate to the time period. What had Gabriel said, the fifteen-hundreds? He glances at Gabriel, who raises his hands.

"Hey, don't look at me. It'll be a while before I've recharged enough to whip us up some clothes."

"So you're, what, a battery now?"

Gabriel shrugs. "Explaining it to you two would be like explaining neuroscience to a poodle. It's not gonna do any good, and you'll probably just be really confused and slobbery afterwards."

"_Slobbery_," Dean repeats, grimacing. He returns to Castiel's side, crowds against him. Sam can see where the seams of their bodies ought to be meeting.

"Fine," he says. "Let's get going."

They start to walk.

***

As they walk, they separate into clumps, occasionally coming back together, and then splitting up again. At times it'll be Sam walking with Gabriel, off to the side, and at other times it will be brother walking alongside brother. Right now it's Cas and Dean, something he's grateful for. It's not like they have all the privacy and time in the world, but it allows him the opportunity to broach the subject of _them_.

When Dean clears his throat, Cas glances over, eyebrows raised expectantly. Sweat dots the collar of his shirt, and Dean motions towards it, awkwardly. "Aren't you hot?" The sun is beating down on them, and it might be Spring, but a few hours of walking through what Gabriel tells them is the Italian countryside has done more damage than good. Castiel looks down at his shirt, mouth pursed.

"I had not noticed," he says.

"It's your coat, Cas. It's probably around seventy-five degrees out here. Not exactly trench coat weather."

Castiel tilts his head, and then quickly and efficiently strips off his trench coat, draping it over his arm, and then undoes the first few buttons of his shirt. Dean watches inch after inch of pale skin peek through, and swallows. "This will resolve my discomfort?"

"Yeah, it should." _But not mine_. Dean gravitates a little closer, until he and Castiel are almost bumping hips. He would never think anything of walking this close to Sam – they used to do it all the time, before Sam made his mistakes, and Dean made some more. With Cas, though, he's acutely aware of how much heat the guy gives off, like he's a fucking _furnace_, and how he smells, not like sweat, but something ethereal and electric. And sort of like flowers.

"We should talk," Dean says, and Castiel blinks serenely. "About…when we were in the hospital."

A blank look.

"When Sam threw his cup of water at us."

Realization dawns, just before Castiel's expression clamps down into calm neutrality. That's not a good sign. In fact, it's about as far from a good sign as an expression can get (with the exception of Castiel outright glaring at him, he supposes).

"There is nothing to talk about," Castiel intones. "It will not happen again."

"Wait, what?"

"It was a mistake on my part. I was…unused to the narcotics I had been given. You were distressed."

"_Yeah_, I was distressed, but what the hell does that have to do with _anything_?"

"I am given to understand that humans make…rash decisions, when under duress."

Oh, this is priceless. "_Rash decisions,_" Dean repeats, and sways a little closer, nudging himself against Castiel's side. The angel, for all that he's protesting, does not move away. Further ahead of them, Dean can hear Sam and Gabriel having a heated discussion.

"You listen, Cas." Something in the tone of his voice catches Castiel's attention, draws the guy's eyes to Dean's. Good. "I would totally understand if it's something you don't want to talk about because it'll get your angel club card revoked, or even because it's just not your deal, but that is _not_ what's happening. What's happening is that you're acting more and more human every day, and you just want to pretend that nothing's wrong. The only reason you keep touching me is because it's your duty, right? Because you're trying to keep me safe. That's why you kept putting your hand on my back, when we were in Crowley's mansion. You wanted to protect me from the big, bad _paintings_."

Castiel's mouth becomes a thin, white line, lips pressed so firmly together that Dean is surprised his face doesn't just collapse in on itself.

"I am not human," he says quietly. "I never was."

"That doesn't _matter_. Face it, Cas, we're _all_ different. It's not like you're the only one who's changed. I'm the vessel for an archangel, Sam is the vessel for _Satan_, and hell, even _Gabriel's_ getting tired easier. Nothing stays the same."

"I am not…"

"If you say 'human,' I'm gonna punch you."

Castiel's mouth snaps shut – his teeth click softly, and Dean feels…well, he feels a little bad about it. They're still walking close together, so Dean reaches up and lays his hand on Castiel's back, tentative, light. Castiel's shoulders shake a little, like he's trying not to cry. That's stupid, though. Dean has never seen Castiel cry, not even after Famine…

Oh. Suddenly, things make a little more sense.

"You know," he says softly, "being human isn't all about…being a slave to your body. I mean, it might feel that way, but it isn't. What Famine did was a _perversion_, Cas. You know there's a difference between craving a cheeseburger and being forced to eat a plate of ground beef…right?"

Castiel doesn't say anything. It's like figuring out the source of an infection – if he can just extract this weird little sliver of fear, Cas will be okay again. He _has_ to be.

"I'll show you," Dean promises. "Once we reach civilization again, I'll show you what being human is supposed to be about."

"I do not require a demonstration."

"Well, tough shit, 'cause I'm not giving you a choice."

Castiel doesn't respond, but he doesn't step away, either. He keeps close to Dean, the dust swirling up around their feet, and they walk in silence that is thick, but, ultimately, companionable.

***

"There is _no way_ I'm wearing this."

Sam covers his mouth with one hand – he's in exactly the same position as Dean, maybe even a little worse off, since his height gave the tailor some trouble. There's no Big and Tall section in Vatican City.

They'd walked for almost three hours before Gabriel felt well enough to jump them a little closer to their destination, and even then they had to keep walking for another forty minutes before they reached the outskirts of a city- and not just _a_ city, but _the_ city, for the time period. _Rome_. The pinnacle of civilization, and they're seeing it at the height of its power, before the sacking of the city in fifteen-twenty seven. Sam's doing all he can to keep from geeking out, and he thinks he's faring pretty well.

Dean, on the other hand, isn't.

"Seriously, I look like a fuckin' clown."

"You look like nobility," Sam offers, and that seems to smooth some of Dean's ruffled feathers. He's completely right, though – Dean _does_ look ridiculous. The doublet is too tight, while the shirt is just a bit too loose, and so the whole thing comes together to make him look like he's a kid who's been trying on his parents' clothes. The hose make him look like Peter Pan. Sam doesn't say this out loud, because he doesn't want to be punched in the face.

The tabard he's wearing is the worst part – and Sam isn't spared it, either. It makes them both look like they've got hospital gowns on. Sam half expects to feel a stiff breeze blow across his ass, but the thing's remarkably sturdy.

Dean irritably adjusts his codpiece, and Sam glances away. Just to be polite.

"So, what's with you and Gabriel?"

Sam scowls down at his boots, hating the fact that Dean is totally oblivious to everything, except for when it _doesn't concern him_.

"It's none of your business."

"Oh yeah? Just like that thing between you and Ruby was none of my business, huh."

Sam turns his shoulder towards Dean – their ridiculous outfits make it less effective as a deterrent, but he still tries. "_Drop it_, Dean."

"So you can, what, go and get yourself addicted to angel blood? Damnit, Sammy, this should be _familiar_ to you!"

"This isn't _anything_ like what happened with Ruby! Ruby was…"

"He's _dangerous_, Sam! Have you conveniently forgotten all the _shit_ he's put us through?"

He hasn't. Obviously, he hasn't – a hundred times, he watched Dean die, and for three months he had been a broken wreck. He'd made decisions he'd never had any right to make. He'd nearly lost himself, and it would be easy, so easy, to blame it all on Gabriel. He's not saying that Gabriel isn't dangerous, but, for now, the part of him that is, and always _has_ been, a Trickster…has been curbed. Sam thinks this is the closest to an archangel that Gabriel has been for a long time.

"I haven't," Sam says quietly. "I'm not about to."

"Then _explain_ it to me, Sammy. Because I sure as hell don't understand any of this."

Sam squeezes his eyes shut – the last thing he wants is for either of the angels to come storming in, and if he doesn't rein in his temper that's _exactly_ what's going to happen. And Dean's voice is filled, not with disappointment, but with quiet desperation. Neither of them has any business casting stones, and Dean knows that as well as Sam does. He's still a stubborn jerk, but he's _worried_, scared, not angry. Sam realizes this with a suddenness and clarity that feels like a punch to the stomach.

"I know what I'm doing." _Liar._

"No, you don't." And even Dean can see it.

Sam picks up a hat from a nearby stand, holding it, running his fingers over the rough wool.

"What about Castiel?"

"What about him?"

"What's the deal between _you_ two?"

Dean shakes his head, but there are two dark points of color high on his cheeks. He's even less convincing than Sam was. "There's no deal."

"And you think _I'm_ in denial."

"I'm _not_ in denial. It's just…"

Sam lifts an eyebrow. "None of my business?"

Dean scowls, reaching out and snatching the hat from Sam's hands. He jams it back on its stand, and then straightens his shoulders. They stare at each other, for what seems the longest time.

"You boys get lost or something?"

They both glance towards the front of the store, almost at the same time, Gabriel's voice jerking them out of what Sam knows could have turned into a screaming argument. He's stupidly grateful, and Dean's expression is pinched, but he thinks he can see a glimmer of relief there, too. They've fought too often already, and there's still so much to do.

"We'll be right out," Sam calls, and glances at his brother.

"Trust me," he murmurs. "Please."

"It's not the sort of thing you just _get_, Sam."

He falls silent. Sam…understands. He wishes he didn't, but he does.

"Trust Cas, then," he says, and Dean's shoulders stiffen, like he wasn't expecting that. "If you won't trust me, then listen to him. He's giving Gabriel the benefit of the doubt, too."

"Yeah, I'm not sure about that, either," Dean mutters, but his posture relaxes, and Sam knows that the subject, for now, has been dropped. He's grateful for that, too. He thinks about Gabriel too much already – he doesn't need Dean to remind him of what he doesn't have, and all the ways he's fucked up in the past. How he'll probably fuck up again in the future. How someone like him doesn't deserve a _normal_ person.

Let alone an archangel.

***

Walking through the streets of sixteenth century Rome is a lot like walking through the streets of any other big city – sure, there aren't any cars or people with iPods jammed into their belts, but there are stores, and stalls selling all kinds of food (mostly fruit, Dean notices), and _thousands_ of people. He's surprised by how much of a metropolis the city is, until Sam (who's been keeping quiet, since their fight in the tailor's) points out that Rome in the fifteen hundreds is like Washington D.C. in the twentieth century – it's a gathering place for the high and mighty, for businessmen, for religious leaders.

And they're heading straight for the center of it all: Vatican City.

"Still don't understand why you couldn't get us clothes that fit," Sam grumbles. He keeps tugging at his too-short hose, scowling every time they don't magically become longer. Castiel glances in Sam and Gabriel's direction, but appears more interested in examining his surroundings. Dean doesn't blame him – they spend so much time out on the highway, in backwater towns and rural communities, that being placed in the middle of all this hustle and clamor is probably equivalent to those movies that Hollywood fell in love with, back in the forties and fifties: 'Country Angel makes it Big in the Big Apple.' Dean pictures Castiel in overalls and a straw hat, and the angel's gaze snaps back to him like a rubber band. He laughs.

"I already explained it," he can hear Gabriel saying. "It's easier to _move_ things than to _make_ them. The tailor already had the clothes, so it was more energy-efficient to…move some money around."

"You _robbed_ someone?"

"_Borrowed._ I'll put it back. Eventually."

"Gabriel has used a phrase before," Castiel says softly. "To describe our relationship."

"Oh, so _now_ we have one?"

Castiel pointedly ignores him. "He informed me that you and I…argue like a 'old married couple.' However, I am beginning to suspect that this might be better ascribed to he and Sam."

"Don't remind me. Tell me again why we can't get a taxi?" The Apostolic Palace looms over them, casting a shadow across the city. Apparently, that's where they're headed. It's going to be a long walk.

"You disapprove of Gabriel," Castiel says. It's like talking to a brick wall.

"No shit."

"Why?"

_Why_. Why do people even feel the need to ask that question anymore? It's a _stupid_ question. Even Sam knows exactly _why_ he should have a problem with Gabriel – the operative word, of course, being 'should.' But he doesn't. And Dean is the only one who acknowledges how broken Sam was, after the whole Mystery Spot fiasco. He doesn't remember dying, but he remembers how desperately Sam had held him, how for weeks he hadn't let Dean out of his sight.

And Dean's still pissed with Gabriel for trying to control them. To make them _accept their roles_. It's the biggest line of bullshit Dean has ever heard, and he's had to listen to _Zachariah_ talk.

"Because this is exactly the same thing that happened with Sam and Ruby," Dean says. He's tired of explaining it. "Sam wants to be…" There's no way to explain it without making his brother sound like a sociopath. Dean swallows, and says it anyways. "…powerful. He wants to be in control. But he never is."

"You are concerned that Gabriel is…using him for his own means?"

"That's exactly what I'm afraid of. And Sam is too desperate to see it." Dean reaches up, scrubbing a hand over his face in a movement that he knows will give away his anxiety to Sam, who's far enough away that he can't hear them, but they've been together so long that reading each other's body language is almost second nature.

"Gabriel is manipulative," Castiel says. "He is capricious, and…crude. I only rarely understand him. Often, I do not _want_ to."

"Dean? Is everything okay?"

_Sam_. Not coming closer, not yet, but if Dean doesn't answer quick enough, he will. So he has to lie and say 'yes,' even though things are as far from okay as they've ever been.

"But I do know that my Brother is not evil," Castiel finishes. "Cruel, perhaps. When it suits him. But he has not Fallen. I sincerely doubt he ever will."

Dean swallows. That shouldn't be comforting, not by any stretch of the imagination, but hearing Cas say it out loud…helps. It doesn't ease the tight knot in Dean's chest, but he thinks that, maybe, that will go away on its own. With time.

"I'm fine, Sammy," he calls out, past the lump in his throat. Castiel looks at him like he knows what Dean's feeling, and that's stupid, because Cas is the one who's terrified of being too human…not Dean.

"You and I need to have a long talk," Dean says, and he swears that he sees Castiel smile, out of the corner of his eye.

But maybe that's just his imagination.

***

"We're in the Papal Palace," Sam says, and he knows he sounds like a reverent idiot (he can tell, by Dean's expression, that Gabriel is probably rolling his eyes at him), but he notices that all of them step a little lighter, once they're inside. Gabriel's still low on angel power, but apparently mind-whammying the handful of Pontifical guards out front wasn't too draining, because he looks fairly pleased with himself, rather than the tired, vaguely sick expression he'd worn when they first arrived in this time period.

The guards hadn't _acted_ like they were being controlled, though. They'd nodded at Gabriel like…like…

"Gabriel," Sam says, slow, because if he says it too loud he's afraid his head might unscrew itself from his shoulders or something. It's _that_ wild. "Do you know the Pope?"

Gabriel's self-satisfied expression ratchets up a few notches, becoming 'unbearably smug.'

"Maybe," he says, and visibly preens when Sam can't seem to shut his mouth.

"Big deal," Dean mutters. "Old guy wearing sheets." He scuffs his boot against the ornate rug they're standing on, huffing when Castiel automatically reaches out and lays a hand on his shoulder. Sam swears they're getting closer every day.

"The Pope is the earthly Mouth of God," Castiel intones.

"More than just a _mouth_, I should hope, lest I feel…_cheap_. Hello, Loki. It's been a while."

They all turn to look at the same time: striding towards them, robes billowing, is _the_ most handsome man Sam has ever seen. It's as if he's walked straight out of classical antiquity – the dark curls, the Cupid's bow lips, the wide and startlingly blue eyes…He could be a statue, if statues were ever dressed in papal vestments. Gabriel's face lights up, and Sam experiences another acute moment of anger, so strong he's sure it must show on his face. Thankfully, Gabriel and the new arrival do nothing more than clasp hands, and Sam is thankful that he's always had a brother – he can tell the difference between a touch that implies companionship versus a touch that implies intimacy.

"I take it back," Dean says, giving the guy a once over that Sam would find weird in any other situation. Not now, though – there's something about him. Even Castiel seems…looser. More relaxed. He's staring at Dean with the soppiest expression Sam has ever personally seen, and no one seems to notice. Or care.

"Don't," Sam corrects softly. "That isn't the Pope."

"I would be insulted," the man says, letting go of Gabriel's hand, "except that I can see you have been…touched by the divine spark, so to speak. Doing a bit of cradle robbing, Loki? The last I knew, you preferred your partners with a bit of experience."

"Kali and I had a thing," Gabriel says, and casts a glance Sam's way, and then Dean's. _Don't correct him_, the look says. "But it's over, now. It's been over for a long time."

"A long time is nothing when you possess marginal control over the thing itself. What century are you visiting from? Do I still exist, there? My worshippers?"

Gabriel laughs. "You get a bit fatter. Dean, Sam, Cas, this is Bacchus."

"Dionysus," the man – holy shit, the _god_ \- corrects, leaning forward in order to shake Sam's hand, and then Dean's. Instead of taking Castiel's hand, though, he gives the angel a slow, obviously interested look. Some of the weird haze lifts from Dean's expression, and he clears his throat. _Loudly_.

"Ah," he says. "I hadn't realized this…lovely specimen had already been spoken for. If you haven't come here bearing gifts, Loki, I can only assume that you are here to take something away. Although I feel the need to bring up that you have already taken _much_ from me."

Gabriel waves his hand. "Please. Nyx has always been a love 'em and leave 'em sort of gal. It's not my fault she dropped you like a hot potato."

"I assume you're referring to her capricious nature and her tendency to abandon the fathers of her children."

"Isn't that what I just said?"

Sam can't take it anymore. He's standing in the home of the Pope (who might be dead, or locked in a cupboard somewhere, he isn't sure) while an archangel and a _pagan god_ talk about…what, sleeping with other pagan gods? Sam is slightly mollified, knowing that Gabriel's…_whatever_ with Kali (Jesus Christ, the _Hindu goddess_) was short-lived, but he's worried about where this is going. Dionysus, he remembers, was - _is_ \- the Greek god of ecstasy. Usually through wine, but there was a reason orgies used to be called 'bacchanalias.'

"Excuse me," he says, and four pairs of eyes slide over him. Castiel, for the moment, appears to have regained his senses. He thinks it's something to do with being close to the god, like a contact high. "Uh, sir. But we're sort of on a tight schedule. We're looking for a horn. Specifically, we're looking for a trumpet. _Loki_…left it here, for safe keeping."

Gabriel slaps a hand to his forehead, the universal symbol for 'you've fucked up,' but Dionysus doesn't seem offended – if anything, he seems _amused_. His gaze lingers somewhere around Sam's forehead, then drifts downward. It's less appraising, and more…politely incredulous.

"And here I thought Zeus was the only one who enjoyed taking mortal consorts," Dionysus murmurs. Sam's not sure what that means, but it sends a dull flush racing through him, like lava. "A trumpet, you say? If Loki left it here, then it is likely that it has remained wherever he put it. I don't presume to touch the Christian God's playthings. I'm only here because Leo invites me."

Oh. Well, that explains the absence of the Pope. Sam has a mental image of Pope Leo the tenth and Dionysus getting drunk together, and he suspects it's probably fairly accurate. Sam blinks, glancing at Dean and Castiel – they have their heads bowed together, like they're discussing something, except they aren't. They're just…listening, intently. It's weird. Dean isn't usually quiet for this long.

"It's always polite to request permission before you shuffle through someone else's things," Gabriel says. "Which I'm assuming you've just given us."

"Permission? Of course. My home is your home. Or…my temporary residence is _your_ temporary residence, as the case may be." Dionysus' perfect lips curl in an equally perfect grin. Sam can only imagine what Eros must look like. "I do, however, have a request."

Gabriel's triumphant expression narrows, becomes suspicious.

"I'm not wearing a dress," he warns, and something in Sam's brain fizzles out, then reboots itself. The mental image of Gabriel in a red sheath dress is simultaneously amusing and intimidating, partially because, if the archangel wanted to, he _could_ make it work. Gender was more fluid for angels than it was for humans.

"Nothing of the sort. I merely request that you join some friends and I for a drink. You are welcome to bring your companions, of course."

Gabriel makes a face. "Not the Maenads? The last thing I want to do is get stuck cleaning up body parts."

To Sam, that sounds less like 'a drink' and more like 'a slaughter.' He tries to remember where he's heard of the Maenads before, but only draws a blank. His unease isn't helped when Dionysus' response is a slow, satisfied grin.

Dean clears his throat again.

"I feel funny," he says, and then his eyes lose focus, and he promptly passes out.

"What he said," Castiel rumbles. Sam covers his eyes, and wishes he could attribute all of this to a really, really weird dream.

His life's never been that easy, though.

***

When Dean wakes up, it's with a pounding headache and a sense of impending doom. Granted, he's woken this way a few times before…but usually he remembers the drinks that contributed to the headache, and the sense of doom isn't nearly so pronounced. He sits up, rubbing at his temples, and groans, "Please let there be a hot chick next to me."

"I do not understand."

He cracks open one eye, peering blearily at the angel sitting next to him. Castiel looks immaculate. As usual.

Except there's something he isn't remembering. Something important? His head hurts. Castiel doesn't look like his head hurts, the bastard.

"Aspirin," Dean moans, lets his eye close again and falls back into…pillows? Fucking _nice_ pillows, ones that feel like they're made of silk. Or something. And he's on a bed, too. Fancy that.

"We are in the year fifteen-sixteen. Aspirin has not yet been invented."

Oh Christ, so it _wasn't_ all a dream. Dean resists the urge to turn over and bury his face in the pillows, maybe even smothering himself, because _hey_, it's not like Heaven's gonna let him die. But he thinks that a few minutes of peace and quiet would do him some good. The bed shifts, and a warm weight settles by Dean's side. Castiel rests a hand on his shoulder, over the mark he left, and Dean shudders.

"You suggested that we have a talk," Castiel says. "I am ready to talk."

"Cas, I've got a headache, can't we…"

"I am ready _now_."

Dean opens his eyes, preparing to tell the angel _exactly_ where he can stick his impatience (namely, a place the sun never reaches), when the weight next to him lurches, and all of a sudden he's got a lapful of angel.

"Gabriel says that life is too short for neuroses," Castiel says thoughtfully, and then leans down, and Dean's headache eases as their mouths meet.

It's hot. It's wet. It's sloppy. Castiel kisses the way he shrugs, the way he uses pop culture phrases that hold no meaning for him, like he isn't entirely sure _what_ he's doing, but he wants to impress Dean anyways with the fact that he _can_.

It's also the sexiest, most intimate kiss Dean's ever had. His arms come up over Castiel's shoulders, holding him closer, pressing against him a little bit harder, and Cas makes a sort of broken-bird sound in the back of his throat, hesitant and terrified. _This isn't talking,_ his body seems to say, and Dean arches up against him. _No. It's better._

"Alright, kids, we've got the Horn, now how about we - "

Oh, Christ.

"_Dean_?"

Castiel tries to turn and look, but Dean curls his fingers at the back of the angel's neck, holding them there for another moment before easing their lips apart with a soft, wet sound. Castiel's pupils are blown wide, and he looks…supremely uncomfortable, yes, but also hopeful. It's a start.

"Didn't Dad ever teach you to _knock_," he says irritably, and Sam, standing in the doorway, has the good grace to look at least a _little_ sheepish. Gabriel, just behind him, just looks smug. Dean squints.

"Sam, why are you covered in hickies?"

Gabriel makes a sound that's somewhere between a snort and a cough. Sam clears his throat, one hand going, self-consciously, to his neck, where a ring of bruises bloom like red flowers. It looks like something with _suckers_ was attached to him.

"Maenads," he says faintly, and Gabriel no longer appears able to hold in his laughter – it booms throughout the room, the hallways, the whole _palace_, huge and joyous and _powerful_. Castiel turns his head, regarding Gabriel with something akin to awe. The little golden trumpet in Gabriel's hands gleams; it seems to magnify the laughter, tenfold, but not in any way pertaining to volume.

Everything sounds like it's made of light, and Sam _smiles_, like it's the most beautiful thing he's ever heard.

_Huh,_ Dean thinks, and presses his mouth to the curve of Castiel's jaw, contemplative. Cas shifts, like he isn't sure whether he wants to move closer to Dean or his brother. Dean holds on, just in case.

_Imagine that._


	3. Nehushtan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Crowley is self-serving, feelings are discussed, and buildings are blown up.

  
Sam runs his fingers over the small, golden trumpet. It's nothing but metal, under his fingers, but he's seen the way it reacts to Gabriel, how the gold seems to pulse with life whenever he takes it in his hands. Gabriel seems different, too. He cradles the Horn like it's a living creature, and has yet to allow either Dean or Castiel to touch it. Only Sam gets that privilege. It's strange. Not the sort of thing he wants to question, out of fear, maybe. Or out of respect. But it's the sort of thing that demands an explanation anyways.

They spent an entire week in the past, guests of Dionysus in the Apostolic Palace. Every night was full of good food, good wine, and, of course, Gabriel, who partied it up with the god of revelry and ecstasy like it was the most natural thing in the world. Sam wants to ask him, even now, about his other self: Loki, a Trickster to be sure, but a _god_, as well. It goes against what Sam has always held as true, that there are angels and demons, and there are gods, and then there is God. But apparently the lines are thinner than he thought.

A week of relative peace, and then Gabriel regained enough strength to beam them back. Dean was happy to see the Impala. He celebrated by driving them all to a diner and ordering the biggest slice of apple pie he could conceivably eat. He shared it with Castiel, who was hesitant, anxious. The thing with Famine had really done a number on him. Sam knows. It did a number on _him_, too.

He runs the tip of his forefinger over the trumpet's shining bell. A shadow falls over him, and he glances up. It's Gabriel, of course. Gabriel follows him wherever he goes. Sam doesn't know whether he should feel glad about that, or creeped out. For now, he's settling for somewhere in between.

"It was always designed for me," Gabriel says, and sits down on the bed next to Sam. They're in another motel room in an endless line of motel rooms. The television only gets TLC and Fox News. The bathroom mirror is cracked. It's been two weeks, and Gabriel has been recovering from all the time travel – from taking them there, and then bringing them back. He still looks exhausted, and there are dark circles under his eyes. Sam thinks he probably doesn't remember how to sleep…not in any sort of helpful way, at least.

Dean and Castiel are getting lunch. Dean has been trying to teach the angel the difference between good things (pie, classic rock, fast cars) and bad things (everything else that their life is made up of). Sam hopes he's successful. He wants to see his brother happy, for once.

Sam presses one of the valves down, and Gabriel cocks his head. "I guess you could say it's _part_ of me. It was made from my Grace, you know."

"So, what, I'm…playing you?"

He presses a little harder, and Gabriel…ripples. Like he's made of water. Like Sam is reaching down into him and grasping something he can't explain.

"In a way."

Sam lifts his finger, lets the valve click back into place. He wonders what would happen if he tried to play this…this doomsday trumpet. Gabriel's Horn. And then the archangel flops backward, easily snatching the Horn from Sam's hands. He cradles it against his chest, liquid golden, _alive_.

"Tell me what Dionysus meant," Sam says. "Tell me the truth."

"Dionysus said a lot of things. If you're talking about when he told you that I'm the envy of all the satyrs…"

Sam scowls, reaching over Gabriel's body for his laptop, left safely on the nightstand. He pretends he doesn't hear the sharp inhale, Gabriel breathing him in, as he grabs hold of his laptop and drags it closer.

"Never mind," he says, and considers how best to go about searching for information on Gabriel's Horn.

"He meant exactly what he said."

Sam closes his eyes. "Do you even know what I'm talking about?"

"Of course. Hard to ignore – you looked like your eyes were about to pop out of your head. It's not that kind of divine spark, you know. You're not going to give birth to another Christ child."

"_That's_ comforting."

Gabriel rolls over, onto his side. The trumpet ends up somewhere beneath him, but he doesn't act as if he's uncomfortable. Sam wonders where he keeps it, when he isn't petting it like a favored dog.

"Don't worry about it," Gabriel says. "It's like when Castiel carved those sigils into your ribs. A bit of extra protection."

"But not for Dean."

Gabriel purses his lips. "No. Just you."

"Then what's the point? Dean's in as much danger as I am."

Gabriel shrugs, but he does it in a way that implies (to Sam, at least) that he's only making the gesture in the first place because he doesn't actually have an explanation.

"I'm not as invested in Dean, as I am in you," Gabriel says, and shifts, his body pressing up against Sam's hip. It's like sitting next to a furnace; Gabriel radiates heat, and Sam finds himself wondering if Castiel is the same way - if it's angels in general, or if it's just Gabriel, some sort of molten core of joy deep down inside him. Sam thinks about the way he had laughed, when he held the Horn for the first time in centuries, and he can see how Gabriel was chosen to be the Messenger. There's a sort of…incandescent love, in him. For life. For everything.

"Just…don't," Sam murmurs, and closes his laptop. There's no point in bothering. He won't be able to concentrate as long as Gabriel is right next to him. "I'm not going to…you know."

Gabriel lifts his eyebrows. "What? Kiss me? Sleep with me?" Sam doesn't answer. "Even though you want to."

Sam turns his head away. Gabriel is like a brand against his hip. "_Stop_. What I want doesn't matter. Dean was…" He takes a deep breath. "Dean was right. I _shouldn't_ trust you. But I don't have a choice."

Gabriel's brow furrows. "You shouldn't, or maybe don't _want_ to trust me, but I'm the only one who knows how to use the relics and what they're for, so you have to anyways. So, in retaliation, you're passive-aggressively refusing to do anything about your own desires, and at the same time you're refusing to reject them, which you could easily do by telling me to fuck off. Tell me if I got everything, it's been a while since I've summarized."

Sam doesn't say anything – he bites his bottom lip. Why _hasn't_ he told Gabriel he isn't interested? Gabriel might be a Trickster at heart, and he might be a devious, manipulative asshole, but from what Sam has seen, angels aren't like demons. Even when they're being total dicks, they have to have…consent. If he told Gabriel 'no,' would it be like Dean saying 'no' to Michael? Would Gabriel pursue him even harder?

Or would he just…stop?

Sam shakes his head, more to clear his mind than anything else, and runs his fingers along the edge of his laptop. It isn't anything like touching the Horn. The laptop is dead metal and plastic. Touching the Horn had been…well.

Like touching Gabriel.

"Crowley said something to me," Sam murmurs. "Before we left." Gabriel doesn't seem phased by the subject change. He only tilts his head, listening.

"I'm sure he said a _lot_ of things. Let me know if any of them were slights against my manhood, though, 'cause that shit ain't cool."

"He told me to come back," Sam muses. "Once we found the Horn, he told me to come back, because he has something we need."

Gabriel shrugs again; Sam is sick of seeing him so noncommittal. "Could be anything. Could be he just wants me to come back so he can…"

"He knows where the next relic is," Sam interrupts (he doesn't want to hear any more). Gabriel's mouth clicks shut. "I remember that. He said that you knew the location of one, and that was the Horn, and _he_ knew where to find another. But he didn't say what it was."

Sam leans forward. "_Tell_ me, Gabriel. Tell me what these things are. What they're for."

Gabriel picks at the sleeve of his jacket, restless, desperate to be in motion. It's like he's worried that, if he stops moving, he'll stop _being_, too. That he'll somehow cease to exist.

"I know the stories," he hedges, and Sam tilts his head, and he listens.

***

"Explain the 'Loki' thing to me," Dean asks. Well, _demands_ would be a better word, since he never phrased it as a question in the first place. But he's not really in the mood to be magnanimous, and Sam has been alternating between looking at Gabriel like he wants to kill him and looking at Gabriel like he wants to…well. 'Pin him against a wall and suck his lungs out through his mouth' comes to mind.

Gabriel glances up from the list he's making. It's a list they're going to need – a list of the relics they have to find. The first thing on it is Gabriel's Horn, and the archangel has put a big red check through it. There are three other things after it: 'Nehushtan,' 'Longinus,' and 'Sword.' The last one has been underlined twice. Dean has no idea what a Nehushtan or a Longinus _is_.

"Think of it like witness protection," Gabriel says. On the bed, across the room, Sam clacks away at his laptop, occasionally casting cow-eyed stares of longing in Gabriel's direction. They're inevitably followed by stony, displeased silences. Castiel is out trying to find Crowley – he and Gabriel have been taking turns. They haven't had any luck so far, but Gabriel seems confident that the slimy bastard will turn up at some point.

"Protection from what?"

"My family, genius. What, you think they sent me off with a song and dance routine? I _left_. I abandoned my post. Even _you_ should be able to understand that. Daddy was a Marine, wasn't he?"

Dean scowls. "You _don't_ mention him. Ever."

"Touchy, touchy. I didn't hear you lending _me_ that same courtesy in the shower this morning."

The typing stops - of course Sam would choose _this_ exact moment to start listening. Dean's glare feels like it's permanently welded to his face.

"Oh God, _Cas_," Gabriel mimics, his voice a high falsetto. Then he drops it, peering at Dean with too-clever eyes. "You know, you do a lot of blaspheming for a righteous man."

Dean reaches across the table and snatches the piece of paper Gabriel is writing on. His ears feel hot. He imagines Sam's stupid, smug grin and straightens the paper out, examining it.

"Glad I got the bathroom first," he hears Sam mutter, and lays his finger next to the second item on the list: Nehushtan.

"Who's Nehushtan?"

"Not 'who,'" Gabriel corrects mildly. "What."

Sam clears his throat. "Nehushtan," he reads, and he pronounces it like fifty times better than Dean could ever hope to. "A bronze snake created by Moses. It was meant to fit on a staff, like a cap. Uh…So the Lord said to Moses, 'Make a poisonous serpent and set it upon a pole; and everyone who is bitten shall look at it and live.' I guess snakes were a big problem in…ancient Judea."

"It's an _allegory_," Gabriel snipes. At least now Dean knows what a Nehushtan is, though. "For some _bizarre_ reason, way back when, Lucifer decided he liked snakes. You know, in retrospect, we probably should have realized something was up, 'cause everyone else was 'ooh'ing and 'ah'ing over the horses and the swans and the fuckin' _amoebas_, and Lucifer wanted to go watch snakes sunbathe for a couple hours."

Dean stares.

"Allegory," Sam reminds, and Gabriel snaps his fingers. Dean's flinch is an automatic reaction, but nothing comes of it.

"_Yes_. An allegory. See, prophetic visions are painful at best, downright confusing at worst. Stuff usually gets lost in translation, and half the prophets were high on some mushroom or other anyways, so the snakes were never meant to be actual snakes. It's just that times have changed, so it's less obvious, now."

Dean thinks about it for a moment. "The snakes…represented Lucifer?"

"Bingo. And, even more specifically, the people who were bitten? Possessed. Demons were attracted to Moses like moths to a porch light. We couldn't just let the guy wander around unprotected, so Raphael came up with the bright idea to give him something that would work like a portable evil-ectomy. A couple words, the right personality, and _poof_. No more demons."

"And you figured you'd shape it like a snake. The symbol of the thing that you were trying to get rid of."

Sam covers his mouth with one hand, and Gabriel's lips curl in something that isn't quite a sneer. Dean gets the impression of one anyways.

"Wasn't _my_ idea. Raph has a weird sense of humor."

"Doesn't explain how this is going to be helpful. It exorcises demons, big deal. We've got a knife that _kills_ them."

Gabriel raises an eyebrow, and both Dean and Sam stare at him for a long, silent moment. The archangel's fingers drum against his knee.

It sort of hits him, all at once, and Dean exhales shaky disbelief.

"No way," he says, and Sam curves his body forward over his laptop, every line in his body tight with interest. "No _way_."

"I guarantee you it isn't as awesome as whatever you're thinking of," Gabriel warns.

"You guys made a relic that could _exorcise the devil._"

"Dean," Sam murmurs, "that's…isn't that a bit of a leap?"

"Leap in the right direction, at least," Gabriel says. "Less 'exorcism' and more…_eviction_. So long as Lucifer can hook his talons into a vessel, even if it isn't Sammy here, he's got a measure of protection. If things start looking bad, he can run – Lucifer's nothing if not patient. Nehushtan wasn't designed to just exorcise demons…it was designed to exorcise _evil_. Which, in case you haven't been paying attention, includes my Brother."

"Okay," Dean says, "slightly less awesome, I get it. But you're forgetting something."

Gabriel blinks.

"If Lucifer gets yanked out of his meatsuit, and this is assuming that we can keep him from _running_, what happens to us? We're human; we so much as glance the wrong way at an angel and our eyes burn out of our skulls. Not the sort of end I'm aiming for, thanks."

"First of all, he can't run," Gabriel says blithely. "I wasn't kidding when I said responding to the Horn is practically coded into us. As soon as I blow it, every angel and demon since the Creation will come running. Lucifer won't have any choice. And _secondly_ \- "

Gabriel doesn't get the chance to explain how else Dean is wrong, because there's a brief knock at the room door, and then Castiel appears. Dean immediately stands, goes to him, ignoring the face that Gabriel makes (rolled eyes, scoffing mouth) and how Sammy follows his movements, tracking the way Dean rests a hand on Castiel's shoulder, letting it hover there for a few moments. Castiel smiles at him, as if he isn't quite sure what to do with this combination of his lips and his teeth, and something clenches in Dean's chest.

"I have found Crowley," Castiel says. And then, "Again."

"Yeah, yeah," Gabriel mutters. "Laugh it up. Gabriel can't keep track of his pet demon. You _know_ how he is. I _can't_ be the only one who snuck into the Garden."

Dean squints. "Garden?"

Both Gabriel and Castiel are suspiciously quiet. Castiel is refusing to look Gabriel in the eye. Finally, Sam clears his throat, and the weird silence is broken.

"Let's just go and get whatever Crowley has," Sam mutters, and starts packing up his laptop.

***

This time, instead of ancient Italy, Gabriel angel whammies them all the way to sunny California. Sam doesn't even need to see a sign or a landmark to know where he is – there's something distinctive about California air. Once you get past the smog of the city, it's…warmer. It's kinder, maybe. Not so lonely. Sam breathes it in while Dean squints up at the sun, then opens the driver side door and gets out of the Impala.

"Is this Stanford?" He hears Dean ask – in Dean's head, there are only a handful of important cities in California, the top two being Los Angeles and Stanford. He gets out of the car just in time to see Gabriel shrug and Castiel, with a quick glance at Dean, slowly begin to loosen his tie.

Huh.

"Bit south of Fresno," Gabriel answers. "Don't ask me for anything exact, all the noise is giving me a headache."

"What noise?"

"Nothing you can hear, sunshine."

Except _Sam_ can hear it. Faintly. He tilts his head, and notices that Castiel has his ear cocked in the exact same way. It's an atonal hum, like the wings of an insect, and Sam turns in a circle until he's facing the direction the sound seems to be coming from (although even that is imprecise – the sound is everywhere, like it's coming from the air itself).

"Oh," he says softly, and feels three pairs of eyes focus on him, and then on what he's looking at. The source of the hum.

He had thought the mansion in Ohio had been extravagant. It's nothing compared to what Crowley has built for himself here in California.

It's roughly comparable in size to the building that Crowley and Gabriel had created, though blessedly free of Crowley's imaginative touch - the statues and gargoyles that flank the roof of the mansion are of the typical kind, grotesque but not fiendish. What's more impressive is the wall that surrounds the whole building: it's at least ten feet high, the gates made of black iron, and it's painted with what looks like a couple gallons of blood. Intricate sigils and symbols, some of which Sam recognizes (but most of which he doesn't), are smeared in red across every surface that will hold them.

"This is familiar," Dean grumbles, and when Sam glances back (determinedly ignoring the way his eyes are starting to swim from that awful _buzz_), he sees that Castiel has a hand tucked against Dean's side. Not holding on, just…resting there. Dean doesn't seem to notice.

"Check it out," Gabriel exclaims. "He worked my symbol right into the design! How _thoughtful_."

"It explains why you were not able to find this building," Castiel murmurs. "Perhaps it would be best if you remained…outside."

"Why?"

Gabriel turns his head, giving Sam a look that he gets from Dean all the time, the sort of look that manages to imply that, not only is he naïve and young, but he's _stupid_, too. But it's mixed with such unabashed _affection_ (and there has been precious little of that from Dean, lately) that Sam has to swallow around the sudden lump in his throat, and he completely forgets to feel offended.

"It's my _symbol_," Gabriel says. "For summoning me, for banishing me. For hiding things from me, in this case. And here…" His fingers trace around the edges of a design that looks like it's based off of a Devil's trap, though Sam has the suspicion that it's probably the other way around. The thing looks _old_.

"…This is a containment sigil," Gabriel says softly.

"Once you go in, you don't go back out," Dean summarizes, and Gabriel rolls his shoulders.

"It's…more complicated than that, but yeah. Basically."

"Which is why Gabriel should remain outside," Castiel repeats, sounding frustrated. Sam sees Dean touch the angel's arm, out of the corner of his eye. He kind of wishes they would just fuck already. For all that he enjoys amusing himself by making Dean's love life more difficult, it's getting to the point where he just wants his brother to be…_happy_.

"Doesn't matter," Sam murmurs. "I'd rather you _all_ stayed outside. Crowley told _me_ to come back. Not Gabriel, not Dean…just me."

"Like hell I'm letting you go in there alone," Dean says. Gabriel looks like he wants to echo those sentiments, but he manages to hold his tongue, and really, Sam shouldn't have expected anything else from his brother.

"I'm not hanging around out here while you crazy kids have all the fun," Gabriel complains, and then, before any of them can speak against it, he shoves a palm against the iron gates, sending them creaking open, and steps through. The hum grows louder, threatening Sam with a headache that he _knows_ he won't be able to get rid of for a couple hours, and then it just…stops.

"Huh," Gabriel says. "That was easier than I thought it would be."

And then he drops like a stone.

"_Gabriel!_"

Sam is distantly aware of the fact that both he and Castiel shout the archangel's name at the same time, but it's Sam, with his longer legs, who crosses the threshold of the wall first. It's like pushing against thick cobwebs for a moment, whatever magic the wall is fortified with making his head feel thick and blurry, and then he's through, Castiel shortly behind him. Sam falls to his knees, shoving Gabriel onto his back; Castiel joins him, and he can hear Dean pacing nearby, not sounding worried, not just yet.

"Gabriel," he says again, and heaves a sigh of relief when hazy green eyes blink and slowly regain their sharp awareness, and then, a moment later, slip fully shut.

"Get the number of that truck," Gabriel says faintly, and then groans, rolling back onto his side and covering his eyes with his hands. Castiel is wearing a vaguely 'I told you so' expression, and the only reason Sam isn't snapping at him to _help_, for fuck's sake, is because underneath that is a very real glimmer of _concern_.

"What the _fuck_," Dean says. Gabriel cracks open one eye and peers in the general direction of the offending noise. His other eye opens, and he allows his gaze to wander, finally coming to a rest on Sam's face. The smile he offers is tentative and very obviously a shadow of what it _could_ be, but after another long moment Gabriel uses his elbow to lever himself up, and from there Sam and Castiel offer their shoulders, heaving him to his feet.

"Told you," Gabriel murmurs. "Containment sigil. No backing out, boys, or else it'll be like leaving a kitten to face off against a wolverine."

It takes Sam a few moments for Gabriel's words to sink in completely, but once they do he's so shocked that his fingers dig into the Gabriel's shoulder. He can see that Castiel has come to the same realization, and the angel's shell-shocked look isn't helping him any.

"Will someone _explain what just happened_."

"In this instance, 'containment' does not merely refer to location," Castiel says. It sounds like he's forcing the words out on borrowed breath, like thinking about it is too much to bear. "It refers to…all aspects. Grace included."

Dean squares his shoulders. Sam can see the twitch in his fingers, the urge to reach for the knife at his belt, but there's no enemy that they can _fight_ here.

"Yeah," he grits out. "But what does that _mean_."

"Means I'm powerless," Gabriel sighs. Another moment passes, this time in silence. Gabriel hesitantly lets go of Castiel's shoulder, and then Sam's, testing out legs that probably feel like jelly at this point. Sam clenches one hand into a fist, and then, hating himself for it, he rests an open palm against the small of Gabriel's back, steadying him.

Gabriel blinks, long, slow, like a cat trying to figure out the inner workings of a mouse.

"Let's just find Crowley and get out of here," Sam says. He doesn't wait for everyone to agree with him – he's tired of standing around with his thumbs up his ass, waiting for Gabriel or Castiel to lead them in the right direction. He gives Gabriel a moment's notice, a quick little push with the flat of his hand, and then leads the archangel up the walkway to the mansion's front door.

After a minute, he hears Dean and Castiel following him. They talk to each other in hushed voices, and Sam tells himself that he doesn't care what they have to say.

***

There's no demon bodyguard to lead them through the halls of Crowley's mansion. In fact, there's a suspicious lack of demons, _period_. Before, they had lurked, silent and imposing, around every corner, just waiting for Crowley to call upon them to act as butlers or punching bags or…something. Dean has no idea what demons do in their spare time, you know, between the raping and the pillaging.

But the whole mansion seems empty. Their footsteps echo (well, Dean's footsteps, and then the sound of Castiel and Sam helping drag Gabriel along as he wavers between retching miserably and passing out for a few seconds at a time), and it makes the place seem…almost like a tomb. _A mausoleum_, Dean thinks.

At least there aren't any paintings of people in Hell. Dean's grateful for that, and he reminds himself to yell at Gabriel for it at a later date. Crowley might have come up with the idea for the décor, but it had been the archangel who had implemented it.

Eventually, they come upon a door. It isn't like the huge double-doors that Gabriel had made, but it's no less imposing for all of that, mostly because as soon as they get near it both Sam and Castiel tilt their heads at the exact same time, weirdly attentive. Dean knows that Sam…senses things, sometimes. He's always assumed that it's remnants from what Azazel did to him, but now…now he's thinking something different.

Because Sam started acting weird when Gabriel started dropping off those little presents for them, and it's only gotten progressively worse since then.

"Crowley is here," Castiel says, and Sam gently transfers his armful of archangel into Castiel's tender care; he holds Gabriel like a sack of potatoes, prompting an unhappy grunt.

"It doesn't feel right," Sam murmurs. He rests his palms flat against the door, humming softly, like he's trying to find the exact pitch of a song he only half-remembers. It's an atonal, droning sound, and Dean frowns. He doesn't have the chance to protest, though, because a moment later, the door swings open. There's nothing inside but…black. It's just endless, uninterrupted darkness.

Dean shoulders Sam out of the way, poking his head across the threshold and squinting into the complete and utter _absence_ \- of light, of color, of sound. It's like sticking his head into a vacuum.

Right up until there's a slow, satisfied-sounding chuckle.

"I was wondering when you all would show up," Crowley says, and then the blackness rushes out, like a wave, like _sand_, smothering and thick. He hears Sam shout something, hears Castiel make a startled, cut-off noise, and then Dean's ears are filled with the sound of his own rushing blood, and he goes…elsewhere.

Dean will deny, until his dying day, that he ever did anything so girly as _fainting_. But if he admits it, even if it's only to himself, waking up again feels an awful lot like opening his eyes after getting knocked out…just, without the splitting headache. He blinks, and for a second he's afraid he's gone blind, because _he can't see_.

And then a palm curves against his jaw, and Dean realizes that no, it's just really, really freaking dark, and now that his eyes are beginning to adjust it's easier to make out the shape of Castiel's face. Dean is startled to realize that he would recognize those shoulders, that jaw line, _anywhere_. Even in a pitch-dark room under more than stressful circumstances.

"Cas," Dean croaks, and the palm smoothes across the stubble on his cheek, and then falls away entirely. He feels weirdly bereft. "Cas, what the _fuck_ just happened?"

"Some form of trap," the angel says dolefully. "We have been…separated, from Sam, and from Gabriel. It has been approximately thirty-one minutes since our incarceration."

Incarceration. Now _that's_ a great word. Dean pushes himself up, groping through the dark for a wall, furniture, _something_. His hand finds something solid and warm instead, and Castiel clears his throat.

"That is my thigh," he says. Dean doesn't move his hand. His hand is better off there than fumbling around in the dark.

"I have endeavored to find a way out of this room." So it's a room, good to know. "I have yet to find a door." Less good to know. Dean clears his throat, moving his hand down until it's resting somewhere around Castiel's knee. The angel tenses, and then relaxes, like it's something he isn't expecting.

"Can't you just...get us out another way? I mean, you're…" Dean pauses, biting his lip. He doesn't want to say 'weak,' because Cas isn't weak – if anything, he's stronger than Dean ever would have expected. But that doesn't change the fact that he's been running low on angel batteries, lately.

"I have tried," Castiel says softly, and, well, that answers _that_ question. "I cannot."

"So we're stuck here."

"Yes."

"In a small, dark room. And the only way we're getting out is by praying that Crowley _isn't_ a huge, backstabbing douchenozzle."

"…Yes."

Dean gives Castiel's knee a squeeze, then lets his hand slip away, reaching out and feeling until he finds a wall to lean against. "Great," he sighs.

"Dean?"

"Yeah, Cas?"

"What is a 'douchenozzle?'"

Dean rests his head against the wall, and can't help the startled laughter that comes tumbling out of him, like stones from a river, rounded and smooth and wholly unexpected.

***

Sam opens his eyes.

His head hurts. It feels like a giant has taken up residence in his brain, too-long limbs folding outwards to infinity, pushing at the inside of his skull. He raises a shaking hand to his face, presses the heel of his palm hard against his eyes until dark sunspots flash across his vision. It doesn't really help, but it gives him something to focus on.

His head isn't the only thing that's fucked up – when he makes the mistake of moving, his stomach informs him that, not only is he in pain, but he's _hungry_, which doesn't make sense because he'd had breakfast that morning (granted, it was the kind of breakfast you ate with one hand and picked up from McDonald's, but still).

Something shifts next to him. Some_one_.

"Welcome back to the world of the living," Gabriel murmurs, and Sam groans, rolling onto his back and blinking at the ceiling.

At the Devil's trap on the ceiling.

They're in the panic room.

Sam's breath hitches, and he tries to sit up, to get a better look, but Gabriel's hand appears and shoves him back down, hot and heavy against his shoulder. He's _hungry_, oh God, he's hungry and it feels like his stomach is about to start shredding itself into tiny, self-digesting pieces. It isn't that bone-deep craving for blood, the sort of thing he'd been able to feel etched into every cell of his body, but it's close, it's too close for comfort. Sam makes a noise that he suspects comes dangerously close to being a whimper, and Gabriel squeezes his shoulder.

"Don't panic," Gabriel murmurs. "Crowley saw fit to leave us a _note_."

Sam takes a deep breath, and then another, gulping it down. It doesn't help, but after a moment he finds his tongue again, thick against the dry roof of his mouth. "And?"

"And it's a load of bullshit. Hold on."

Gabriel's hand disappears, and Sam spends the next few seconds afraid his eyeballs are going to float out of his skull. When the soft weight returns he almost sobs with relief. Almost.

Something's wrong with him. He could have sworn he disliked Gabriel a few hours ago.

"Dear Winchesters and company," Gabriel says – reading something. Sam curls his legs up towards his chest and shudders. "As you might have already deduced, I am in possession of the relic you have been seeking. It will remain in my care until such a time as I have deemed you…_adequate guardians_. Ballsy little bitch."

"Skip to the part where he tells us when we can leave," Sam whispers. He's afraid that if he speaks any louder, Gabriel will hear the waver in his voice, and will understand what's wrong with him.

There's the rustle of paper, Gabriel's thumb sliding across; every sound is magnified tenfold. Sam's ears hurt.

"Ten pages and there isn't a single mention of how we're supposed to get out. There's a lot about reliability and…insurance. Oh look, and here he refers to you and your brother as 'investments.' Charming."

"He won't let us out until we've met some sort of requirement," Sam guesses. He folds his hands over his stomach, wincing. The pain is getting worse.

"That seems about right. And there's this bit, right here…'it must be guaranteed that all related parts work smoothly together in order to overcome adversity.' What are we, Ikea furniture?" The paper crinkles, and Sam hears it hit the wall right before Gabriel shifts a little bit closer. He gives off so much heat. Sweat breaks out on his forehead, and Sam groans.

"Sammy? Kinda…flying blind, here, I can't tell when something's wrong. You okay?"

A hand folds across his forehead, and Gabriel hisses. "You're burning up."

"Yeah," Sam murmurs. And then, it sort of slips out of him, like it's something he's meant to say, like holding it in will make him hurt even more: "I'm hungry."

He hears, more than feels, the way that Gabriel goes completely still. For a long second it's like the archangel is holding his breath. Then, a thumb brushes his sweaty hair from his forehead, and Sam cracks open his eyes. Gabriel's face is blurry, and he looks about as well as could be expected, considering that he's powerless and trapped in a room with _Sam_.

_Monster,_ Sam thinks. _Trapped in a room with a monster._ His eyes slip shut again.

"You shouldn't touch me," Sam whispers. "You shouldn't…" He bites his lip, and the salt tang of his own blood makes everything _worse_. Sam doesn't think he can move, but if the pain gets bad enough, if it starts feeling like…like…

Oh God, what if he attacks Gabriel? Is that what Crowley means by adversity? Him trying to tear out Gabriel's throat?

At least Dean isn't here.

"I've never been really good at that," Gabriel says. His hand slides back through Sam's hair, and even though Gabriel gives off the same approximate amount of heat as a wood-burning stove, the touch is like spreading balm across a burn, taking a cool shower on a hot day. It soothes something in him, and Sam hadn't even been aware it was hurting. His stomach clenches on its ball of pain, somewhere deep in the pit of him, and Gabriel's fingertips stroke the back of his neck. "The whole 'following orders' thing. I _want_ to touch you."

Sam moans as Gabriel's fingers go from petting to _gripping_, but it's only to lift him partly off the floor. He's surprised when his cheek doesn't meet cool tiles, but rather…denim. Warm muscle underneath. Gabriel's lap.

"I can never figure out what you're thinking," Gabriel murmurs. "It's all right there, right out in front…but all jumbled up. Your head is a hedge maze, and every dead end is pain and betrayal. I almost don't want to go pricking my hands on those thorns you're growing. Almost."

"I hate you," Sam says.

"No, you don't."

"You killed Dean. _Killed_ him. I thought I was…I got so lost. Was all your fault."

"Yes." No excuses. No sarcasm. Just…the truth. An admission. Sam feels his brow furrow in confusion.

"…I don't know how I feel," he says, because as long as they're trading truths, and as long as Gabriel is insisting there's no hate between them, that seems like a good place to start.

"You could start with admitting how much you want me."

"I don't - " Sam pauses, frowning. Actually, as far as admissions go, that one's…pretty tame. Sam doesn't have the same lenient attitude towards sex as his brother, but saying that you're attracted to someone is a far cry from saying you want to _be_ with someone.

And it's not like he's been hiding it from himself. Or anyone, really.

"You're very compelling," Sam grits out, and Gabriel laughs. He shifts, and Sam's cheek presses harder against his thigh. He still smells faintly of burnt sugar, but underneath that there's the very real scent of sweat, and fear. The sort of animal smell you learn how to detect when you spend more than half your life as a hunter.

"Gotta say, as far as backhanded compliments go, I've heard worse."

"Crowley said…"

"_Again_, with what Crowley said. If Crowley told you to go jump off a bridge, would you do it?"

Smartass. Sam ignores him. "Crowley said that you're…flighty." That's the best term he can think of, without actually slinging around the word 'slut.' Gabriel laughs, and Sam can hear something…a quiet susurrus of sound. Gabriel shaking his head.

"I _am_ flighty. And I'm cruel, and irresponsible, and a bit of a coward, not to mention I'm not human. I've done awful, violent things, and I don't have excuses for the majority of them. I don't _want_ to have excuses." Something in Gabriel's voice wavers, halfway to resignation. "I'm not something that will ever make you happy, Sam Winchester."

His stomach doesn't feel any better, but Sam lifts a hand from where he's folded them across his middle, scrabbling up and over rough denim until his fingers find the thigh he isn't resting on, and then further up, squeezing. Gabriel makes a noise like someone's just punched him in the chest.

"Shut up and kiss me before I puke on you," Sam says. Gabriel huffs short, sharp laughter, and then neatly folds himself over, and his lips are exactly as sweet as Sam imagined, and touching him is like holding his hand too close to a volcano, all barely contained heat. Gabriel licks the seam of his mouth, a burst of sugar and then the electric crackle of _him_ just underneath. Sam groans into it, curls his tongue to chase the taste of ozone into Gabriel's mouth, and he's distantly aware of the archangel's hips pressing up against his cheek, the strong line of warmth there, and…

"_Finally_," a disembodied, disturbingly familiar voice says. It sounds like it's coming from the walls, and Gabriel straightens up. Sam doesn't need to have his eyes open to know that the archangel is scowling.

His stomach is starting to feel better.

"I was starting to think you two would _never_ stop dancing around each other."

"What'd I say," Gabriel says. "Ballsy little bitch."

Sam hums his agreement, but doesn't move his head from Gabriel's lap.

***

"You kids alright?"

Dean self-consciously straightens his shirt. Castiel looks as unruffled as always, but Dean doesn't have that sort of composure, especially when Sam is leaning on Gabriel like a crutch. A few hours ago it had been Gabriel who'd needed help standing – what the hell _happened_? Worry tightens his throat, makes it hard to speak for a moment. He had assumed...Sam had been with _Gabriel_. A temporarily powerless Gabriel, sure, but there was no way the archangel would let any harm come to Sammy.

Right?

"What happened." It comes out of him in a growl, and Sam's mouth curls up in a smile. Dean can practically hear him thinking - _Dean's still trying to be the big brother. Trying to take care of everything._ Fuck yes, he is. But if Sam is smiling, then whatever happened is probably just another thing to be filed in the 'Forget' folder of his brain.

"Crowley thought he was being funny," Gabriel says, and it isn't the answer Dean wants, but at least it exists. He won't fall asleep tonight wondering what it was that he did wrong.

"Sammy?"

"M'fine, Dean," Sam murmurs. He keeps reaching down, touching his stomach. Like he's afraid that any minute his hand will pass right through it and he'll end up hollow inside. "S'the truth."

"We were right across the hall from each other," Dean says. "You were _right there_."

"I'm _fine_, Dean."

"You'll feel even better once you've gotten what you came here for."

They all turn their heads at the same time – Dean would think it was funny if the situation were anything other than 'we were just separated and locked in different rooms like some awful Director's cut from Silence of the Lambs.'

"Guess what, Crowley," Gabriel says cheerfully. "As soon as my hands are free, I'm going to pull your lungs out through your spine! Doesn't that sound _fun_?"

Dean hates to admit it, since it's Gabriel's idea, but that _does_ sound pretty fun.

"Absolutely wonderful," Crowley says, and draws something from his jacket pocket, something that shines as it catches the light. He tosses it, and Castiel just barely manages to catch it, batting Dean's hands out of the way at the last second – it's some sort of bronze statue thing, it's…

It's a _snake_.

"Do _not_ touch it," he says, and Dean lowers his hand, because he has _never_ heard that tone from Cas before, terrified and awed at the same time. "It is not meant for you. Only my Grace prevents it from harming me."

"Well then, who's it meant for?"

"Me, I think," Sam murmurs. Gabriel shifts, hefting more of Sam's weight. Seeing them leaning on each other is kind of hilarious, actually.

"You ought to get going fairly quickly," Crowley says, raising a hand and nonchalantly examining his nails. Gabriel levels him with a look that could make a statue cry, but the demon doesn't even flinch.

"And why's that?"

Sam lifts his head, eyes widening.

"Dean," he says. "Dean, we have to go."

"What? Sammy, why – "

"Because in about eight minutes, this building will be reduced to rubble by a very angry Gatekeeper," Crowley says. He slants his gaze in Gabriel's direction, all mock sympathy and annoyance. "Everything I've worked to accumulate, _gone_, because I was moronic enough to develop a soft spot for an archangel. Such is life, I suppose."

He turns his palm, giving them a half wave, and Dean feels, more than sees, the way he gathers himself, like the coiled tension in a leg just before a jump. "Farewell for now, boys. And Gabriel?"

Crowley's smile is sharp, and bright. "Don't forget to write."

And then he's gone.

"_Shit_," Dean says, and grabs hold of Castiel's wrist, narrowly avoiding brushing his bare skin against the weird metal snake. Castiel follows him, stumbling, as if running is a foreign concept to him. "Come on! Gabriel, get Sam!"

"Don't have to tell me twice." Dean hears Sam let out a gasp, and he catches the impression of long legs and _wings_ just before they're abruptly teleported out of the mansion, Sam wide-eyed and frantic, Dean gasping.

The walls, the ones that had held them in, that had reduced Gabriel and Castiel to shells, are littered with cracks. Every single sigil has been split into two, and that explains the sudden angel whammy, at least, but it doesn't explain the heat lightning that streaks across the clear blue sky, the way the wind is picking up into hurricane proportions.

Gabriel carefully helps Sam into the Impala, keeping a wary eye on the horizon. Something is coming. Dean can't feel it, but he can sure as hell _see_ it.

"One way ticket on the Archangel Express," Gabriel calls out, and Dean scrambles to get behind the driver's seat, Sam unnaturally still and rigid beside him. Castiel follows, slipping into the back seat, holding the snake in his lap. "Keep your hands and arms inside the vehicle, because we're about to ride the lightning!"

Dean glances in the rearview mirror. "_Ride the lightning?_ Christ, and I thought you couldn't get any more – "

Gabriel lays one hand on the side of the Impala, and then raises the other.

The snap of his fingers is followed by an explosion of light, the rumble of agonized stones, and Dean automatically reaches for Sam with one hand, for Castiel with the other.

Sam glances sideways, and there's a peculiar light in his eyes, some infinitesimal amount of hope that Dean can't recall seeing there before. He squeezes his brother's hand.

"It'll be alright," Sam murmurs.

Dean shuts his eyes, and the light washes over them, fierce and beautiful, _yes_, like hurtling headlong into a Tesla coil, and nothing but Gabriel's Grace between them and that aching brilliance.


	4. The Spear of Longinus

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the brothers Winchester venture into the untamed wilds of Alabama, Gabriel makes an attempt at public displays of affection, and an attempt to retrieve the third relic does not go as smoothly as planned.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All depictions of towns and cities are fictionalized (or really just descriptions of my own town), because I'm boring and I don't drive or travel. No offense was ever intended.

  
"Ow," Dean says, followed by a low, prolonged hiss of pain. Castiel shushes him, smoothing burn cream across Dean's back. Sam winces in sympathy all the way across the room – not that he's being spared any pain. He's getting the same treatment, albeit with significantly less attention to detail: Gabriel smears the white goop across his hip with artless sweeps of his palms, appearing to follow the 'drown it with care' school of medicine.

"I don't know why it won't heal," he says softly, and Sam makes a soft, pained noise, high in his throat, when a finger brushes a little too hard, a little too fast. Gabriel scowls at the tube of burn cream. "I thought this stuff was supposed to _help_."

"It does help," Castiel murmurs. Sam's a little surprised that he's the one answering, but a quick glance across the room reveals that Dean is slumped on the other bed, eyes glazed over as Castiel rubs circles into his shoulder. Sam looks away, clearing his throat. "However, it requires time. Humans cannot heal themselves by thought alone."

"They should," Gabriel mutters, and Sam holds in a laugh. Not because it isn't sort of tragically funny, an angel like Gabriel complaining about humans not healing fast enough, but because it makes his sides hurt, and he doesn't want another helping of pain on top of his already-searing agony, thanks.

"I'm grateful that we got out of there at all," Sam says, because someone has to look on the bright side, and wonder of wonders, for once it's him. Gabriel slathers more cream across his left hip, following the trail of irritated skin all the way up to the bottom of his ribcage.

He realizes, with sudden and mortifying clarity, that they are lying in the same room, Dean with his shirt off and Sam with his pants halfway to his knees, while celestial beings attend to them with ointment. It would make a really good premise for a porno, and Gabriel makes a noise that's half approval, half amusement.

"Stop looking in my head," Sam protests. "Just because there's…_whatever_, doesn't mean you can poke around in my brain."

Slippery fingers curl against the jut of his hipbone. "I can think of some other places I'd like to poke around."

"Oh God," Dean says, and loudly, obviously, pulls a pillow over his head while Castiel fans his fingers out and massages cream into the small of his spine. The angel makes a short, soothing sound.

"You are closer to the Host than I, Gabriel," Castiel says quietly. Sam lets his eyes slip shut, and just…listens. Gabriel's hand on his side is oddly comforting.

"Not by much. Not these days."

"Regardless, you must have _some_ idea as to why Hadraniel is…"

A thumb hooks itself in the waistband of his boxers and Sam reaches down to swat at it, maybe a little less irritably than he would have before. "No, Castiel. I don't."

"But you are –"

"I said _no_, okay? I don't have a fuckin' clue. So don't ask again."

He hears Dean humming into his pillow. Sam gets the feeling that, if Castiel tried that thing with the thumb, Dean wouldn't be nearly so quick to push him away. Dean has always been more comfortable in his own skin, ever since they were kids and Sam was a lanky too-thin fourteen year old and Dean was rapidly learning how to make men and women love him for a night, and one night only. Sam has never felt that secure with himself.

And it's even harder, now, after what he's seen. The things he's done.

A warm mouth nudges against the curve of his spine, Gabriel's lips finding and kissing the knots of tension in his back, the burn cream making everything numb and cold and strange. He isn't sure what to do with the archangel, now that they've…what, shared their feelings? Now that Gabriel has basically told him that Sam will end in ruin if he lets the archangel too close. This gentleness, where before he had been used to mocking insults and sarcasm, is…disorienting.

"Hey," he says, and twists himself, dislodging the rough press of Gabriel's mouth. "Shouldn't we be talking about the next relic?"

"Two down, two to go," Dean mumbles. Castiel gingerly pats Dean's back, where the skin is pink instead of red, and then slides off of the bed so that Dean can right himself. "What's the next one? Longi– something. Right?"

"The Spear of Longinus," Castiel corrects mildly, and a part of Sam's brain has what Dean would undoubtedly call a geek-seizure.

"Wait," he says. "The Spear of Longinus. Longinus, the Roman soldier who was there at the Crucifixion."

"Got it in one," Gabriel says, and when Sam awkwardly hauls up his pants again, it's to find that the archangel has already moved on to something more entertaining – which is to say, he's unearthed a Twix bar from his pocket and is using his teeth to scrape away the chocolate and caramel before eating the cookie underneath.

_Flighty_, he reminds himself. No one ever said things were going to be easy.

"A spear," Dean says, and Sam can tell from the tone of his voice that he's thinking of all the ways that spears are large and unwieldy and just plain _stupid_, so he lets himself fall onto his side on the bed, facing his brother, still face-down in a pillow, and Castiel, who glances between Sam and Gabriel, unblinking and serene.

"It has to do with origins," Gabriel says, _reluctantly_, Sam thinks, and that's…that doesn't make sense. They've managed to get the first two relics without any loss of life, and the burns will heal, of course they will. So why does Gabriel sound like he'd rather have his teeth pulled than tell them how the relics will _help_?

"I'm listening," Dean grunts, and stills as Castiel sweeps a gentle hand across the wings of his shoulders, unerringly finding and fitting his palm to the scar on Dean's arm.

"You haven't noticed what's special about these things? How they were made? The Horn, the snake…now the Spear? Help me out here, kiddo, a good reveal's worth nothing if the audience can't figure it out on their own."

Sam frowns. "Uh…The Horn…You said it was made from your Grace. So it's angelic. And Nehushtan was made by Moses."

"Who was human," Dean offers. Castiel is busy staring at Gabriel, and Gabriel, in turn, is shifting his shoulders, nervous. Agitated.

"You are bringing together the four bloodlines," Castiel says after a long moment. He sounds stricken, like he's stunned that he didn't realize it earlier, except Sam doesn't know _what_ he's realized – the four bloodlines? Bloodlines like the way that Heaven had needed John and Mary to have children? He backtracks, trying to see it the way Castiel is seeing it: Gabriel, Moses, and now Jesus Christ…

He blinks, and the information tips sideways, sliding into place. An angel, a human, and the Son of God.

"Oh," he says faintly, and rests his head against the pillow while Gabriel runs fingers through his hair and he tries to think of something to say, but the words refuse to rise in his throat.

"I don't get it," Dean mumbles, and Castiel silences him with a kiss that Sam pretends he doesn't see.

~

Lucifer walks the earth, and the world ends quietly around them. Every time Dean turns on the television there's a new special on a hurricane that's ripped apart the coast of Florida, flooding in Nashville that's left thousands of people without homes, earthquakes in California causing millions of dollars worth of property damage – and that's not even including the loss of life. America isn't the only country getting hammered, but they're feeling the brunt of it, and it gets to the point where Dean doesn't even bother turning on the television any more. They move from motel to motel, drifting southeast, and Dean avoids radios, TVs, newspapers. Sam doesn't say anything, but he knows he isn't exactly being subtle.

And there's still no sign of the Spear. Just a vague pull of sensation that Gabriel feels, something that Sam, occasionally, says he can feel, too. Like someone's plunged a fishhook through his spine and is pulling him towards the coast.

"So, you and Gabriel," he had tried at one point, and Sam had hunched his shoulders against the words like they were physical blows. Castiel had been silent in the back seat. Being around Gabriel was good for him – like they were feeding off of each other, or something. Taking strength from each other. Dean tried not to think about it too much. "You're…what? Angel-married?"

"Don't," Sam had said. "I don't know what we are. We just _are_."

And that had been the end of that. But in Mannford, Oklahoma, Sam sniffs out the buried remains of a murder victim without ever having to set foot in a town hall or a library. When Dean asks about it, Sam just shrugs and changes the subject, and Dean thinks that it's probably that same pulling feeling, something otherworldly and strange showing him the way. Like calling to like.

Dean loves his brother, but he's not gonna lie to himself and say that Sammy isn't a bit of a freak.

Gabriel is different, too. No less manic, but there's a focused precision to him. Like they're trying to control a tsunami, and somehow they're succeeding. Dean wakes up one morning (it must be Castiel's turn to search for the Spear, because there's no heavy gaze resting on him, no warmth along his side where Castiel likes to sit and watch over him) only to find that Sam isn't alone in his bed. Gabriel is laying next to him, hands folded neatly on his chest while Dean's brother cuddles into him, stupid-long legs and arms wound around the archangel like an octopus.

Gabriel's also wearing nothing but a pair of boxers and some mismatched socks, but Dean's choosing to ignore that part.

"Dude," he says, and wonders when Gabriel was upgraded from 'douchebag' to something resembling…an ally. "Get a separate room."

Sam snorts in his sleep, one huge hand splayed across Gabriel's stomach. The archangel turns his head, raising an eyebrow.

"Please," Gabriel says. "If I have to watch you and my brother eye-fuck each other from across the room, the least you can do is let me have _cuddle time_."

Dean thinks that 'cuddle time' ended like, half an hour ago, and Gabriel is easing himself into 'half-naked makeout time,' but when he thinks about it, Castiel has been giving him…_looks_, the past few days.

Maybe he should mention it.

Sam makes a sleepy, not-entirely-innocent noise and pulls Gabriel tighter to him. Dean throws a pillow over his head and sleeps until Castiel wakes him in the morning.

~

"We have searched up and down the coast of this country," Castiel says. It's rare that he gets so agitated that you can hear it in his voice – or maybe Sam is just more attuned to angels, these days. Dean, too, because his brother glances up from where he's cleaning a shotgun across the room, brows furrowed in mild concern. "The Spear is nearby. We can _feel_ it."

"Yep," Gabriel says. Every time Sam looks up, Gabriel is there, usually with his mouth wrapped around some kind of candy.

Sam looks up. Gabriel's lips are bright blue around the popsicle he's sucking on. Sam makes a strangled sort of whimpering noise, something he quickly covers with the back of his hand, and goes back to scanning the internet. When it had become apparent that even angelic intuition wouldn't be enough to bring them to the Spear's front door, Dean had suggested using human ingenuity, instead. Sometimes Sam questions his status as 'the smart one,' if something as simple as using the Internet to help hadn't crossed his mind.

"But we cannot pinpoint its exact location."

"Nope."

"_Why_, Gabriel."

"Makes sense," Dean chimes in. Both angels turn to look at him, and Sam knows without looking that Dean is hunching his shoulders defensively under the attention. "Well, I mean. Maybe it's like a defense mechanism? Against demons. And Lucifer. And I can't believe I'm saying that about a fuckin' _spear_."

"Couldn't have said it better myself," Gabriel murmurs. He sounds surprised, and it startles a snort out of Sam.

"I'm not stupid," Dean says. "I'm _not_."

"I had not considered the possibility that the Spear itself was the source of this confusion." Castiel sounds a little awed, and after a moment Gabriel throws himself down on the bed beside Sam, somehow managing to take up an insane amount of space without actually disturbing Sam's laptop. Sam lifts it up anyways, scowling.

"I wish they'd fuck already," Gabriel groans. Dean makes a scandalized noise, quickly shushed by Castiel. Maybe his mouth. Sam isn't sure. "Don't you wish they'd fuck?"

"I don't want to think about it," he mutters vaguely. Doing a Google search for 'Spear of Longinus' brings him to two different Wikipedia entries, neither of them any help, so he's expanded his search to the more general 'antique biblical spear.' He squints at the search page, and then rubs irritably at his left temple. He's sort of surprised (except – not really, not if he thinks about it) when Gabriel's hand covers his, two fingers touched to his skin. The burgeoning beginnings of his tension headache seep away, replaced with a tingling heat.

And sudden, uncomfortable arousal. He tilts the laptop away, glaring at where Gabriel has pillowed his cheek against Sam's thigh.

"I saw a program on training chimps, once," Gabriel croons. "They have to be given _examples_."

"Oh my _god_," Sam says. "Just…just _stop_, seriously."

And then he glances down at what his fingers have typed into the search bar.

_ Antique spear carved symbols_

He wasn't even paying attention.

"Huh," Gabriel says, craning his neck in order to see, then raising his hand and pointing. He very carefully keeps his finger at least an inch away from the screen, and Sam realizes, is sort of _struck dumb_ by the fact, that Gabriel is doing it for _him_. Archangels probably don't care about computer screens at the best of times, after all. "What's that one, right there?"

Sam hovers the mouse over the link Gabriel's gesturing to. It's a website for some kind of diner: the 'All-American Eat and Drinkery.' He says the name out loud, and Dean snorts.

"Lemme guess, it's somewhere in Mississippi. Kentucky?"

"Alabama," Sam says, and clicks the link. The homepage is too bright, the colors loud and eye-catching. Sam instantly hates whomever it was the diner hired to make their webpage – he could design a better one in his sleep, and graphic design is hardly his realm of expertise.

There's a picture, at the bottom, of the owners: a husband and wife, Lucy and Andy Caron, and their two daughters, Iris and Daisy (Sam suspects that a third daughter would probably be Rose, or possibly Lily, so he's sort of glad they stopped while they were ahead). They're standing in front of a long, low-slung bar, the walls lined with shelves and shelves of booze. It's an alcoholic's wet dream.

And mounted above the bar is a spear.

"No way it's that easy," Sam breathes, and Gabriel noses at his neck, presses a kiss there, dry and quick. Sam is still too stunned to do much more than acknowledge it with a shrug of his shoulders.

"Sometimes life gives you a break," the archangel says sagely.

"'Life' is not a separate entity," Castiel pipes up. "It is incapable of giving anyone anything."

"Holy shit, Cas," Dean says; there's laughter in his voice. "Just…just come here and stop thinking so hard."

Sam pretends that he doesn't hear them kiss, but Gabriel is insufferably smug about it for the rest of the day.

~

"I don't think this place is ready for us," Sam says, and honestly, Dean doesn't want to admit it out loud, but Sam might be right. Sam is right a lot, so he doesn't actually need to hear it – no need for the praise to go to his head.

Gurley, Alabama is a small town. Small, in that it's the sort of place where people tend to marry within the borders and there are a lot of trucks with fake plastic testicles hanging off the hitches, and Dean's never really had that much of an opinion on the Confederate flag before, but he's starting to get sick of seeing it already, and they've only been here for a _half hour_. The angels are scouting the area – well, _Cas_ is scouting the area, he can only guess what Gabriel is doing. But it means that he and Sam are alone, at least for a little while, standing in the lobby of a motel that seems to be themed around hunting, although 'hunting _what_' doesn't seem to be a pressing issue. Dean stares for almost a minute at the decorative deer hoof paper weight on the front counter before Sam steers him towards their room.

"This place is disturbing," Sam says, once they're safely out of earshot. "There are dead things _everywhere_."

"Reminds me a lot of Montana. Except in Montana it was mostly bears and deer, not…" He gestures towards the stuffed rainbow trout mounted on the wall between their beds. "…Whatever this place's deal is."

"Everything," Sam says mournfully. He flops down on the empty bed, not even bothering to take his boots off, and Dean is struck with a pang of longing so fierce it makes his chest ache. He's almost _desperate_ for those days when it had just been him and Sam, brothers first and hunters second. The road had been _theirs_. He's…grateful, to have Castiel. This thing between him and the angel…sometimes he thinks it brings out the best in him, and other times he thinks it's too good, that he doesn't deserve it. But there's no denying that it's complicated – between him and Cas alone, they've got a whole bucket of issues, not the least of which is this weird fucking _quest_ they've all put themselves on. Dean still doesn't quite understand it.

"So, we find the Spear," he says slowly, sitting down on the edge of the other bed. "And then what? We get all the puzzle pieces and stick them together in one room, and we...ask Lucifer to leave nicely? These are all _weapons_, dude."

"Hmm," Sam says, and fumbles for his duffle, drags it up onto the bed with him and then unzips it. He pulls out the Nehushtan, and Dean swears it seems almost…malleable, in his hands. Like a real snake. Sam bends it, slips it over his wrist, where it rests like a bracelet. It looks really fucking girly, but also…powerful.

"Thought that was supposed to go on a staff or something."

"I don't know what will happen." Sam rolls his shoulders – his murmur is almost lost in his pillow. He needs a haircut. Later, Dean is going to threaten him with scissors, but right now he listens, because if anyone is going to understand what's going on here, it'll be Sam. "Gabriel is…I tried asking him about the last thing on the list. The Sword. But he wouldn't talk about it, just said that we'd cross that bridge when we reached it. You gotta admit, getting the relics has been pretty easy up to this point."

"Sure, go and jinx it." Dean scowls, and Sam flips his hair out of his eyes. He's smiling a little bit.

"We've had it easy," he repeats. "And I think…I think, after this, it's going to be different."

"Still don't know what we're supposed to _do_ with all this shit," Dean grumbles.

"I think we're going to use it to fight. I mean…It's probably going to be a little more involved than that, but what else are you going to use a spear and a sword for?"

"And what about the trumpet and the snake?"

"Like I said," Sam murmurs. "Probably a little more involved."

"Fuck this," Dean says. "I'm so tired of not knowing what's going on."

"It isn't like the Apocalypse comes with an instruction manual, Dean. Unless you count Revelations."

"Hunting normal monsters is so much more straightforward," he sighs. "Go to the bad thing, figure out what it is, then gank it. Simple. No fuss."

Sam's mouth curls in a smile. Dean has noticed that, for the past week or so, Sam's smiles have been looking more and more like kinder versions of Gabriel's. "God. You know our lives are messed up when we're pining for _normal monsters_."

"Don't even get me started," Dean grumbles, and that's when the door to the room swings open, and Dean is reminded that no, it isn't just him and Sam any more, although he thinks that this conversation, short though it might have been, was sort of like a…a _balm_, maybe. He and Sammy don't talk nearly as much as they used to. The long hours in the Impala are no longer spent in easy silence, and he can't even remember the last time he put dye in Sam's shampoo, or rearranged the keys on his laptop.

Castiel is the first one through the door, looking stoic and impeccable under his million-pound trench coat. Dean feels hot just looking at him; it's humid here, beyond belief, and he and Sam have only ever taken on a handful of hunts below the Mason-Dixon Line.

(The South takes care of itself, so soaked in old magic that, even if there _is_ a problem, it often doesn't take a hunter to fix it. Things tend to work themselves out on their own.)

But the point is, it's _hot_, and damp, and Dean really just wants to slide Cas' coat from his shoulders and pull him down onto the bed and lay there with him, with the air conditioning running full blast and maybe some ice water on the nightstand. But _no_, Dean has to watch Castiel walk around in that travesty of a coat while a leggy brunette follows him into the…

Wait. Wait a second.

"_Gabriel_?" That's Sam, sounding like someone just smacked him in the face with a dead fish, but it still takes Dean a minute or so to reconcile his mental image of Gabriel (short, douchebaggy archangel with a candy complex) with the woman who has just strutted through the door like she owns the place (long, tan, slinky red halter top and jean shorts).

Sam makes a noise that, any other day, Dean would be tempted to call a 'whimper.' But he's feeling kinda off-balance, too, so he decides to let it slide.

"Hey, boys," the brunette says. Castiel looks vaguely uncomfortable, and sidles closer to Dean. Dean is perfectly fine with this. He's _more_ than fine, actually, and he snags the angel by the crook of his elbow and pulls him closer.

Sam makes another soft, disbelieving sound.

"What's the matter, kiddo?" The brunette - _Gabriel_ \- leans against the edge of Sam's bed. "You've seen me take other forms before."

"Uh," Sam says as Gabriel trails his fingers over the curve of Sam's jaw. Dean looks away, uncomfortable, but not before he notes (with some amount of interest) that Gabriel's nails are 'no nonsense' short, and that he (she?) isn't wearing any makeup. Sam doesn't seem to mind the gender discrepancy – he still makes an utterly pathetic noise when Gabriel unselfconsciously drops himself into Sam's lap.

"Cas," Dean says. "That _is_ Gabriel, right?"

"Yes, Dean."

Dean doesn't mention the fact that Sam recognized Gabriel long before Dean did. Angels and their spooky mind powers. _Sam_ and his spooky mind powers. Go figure. "Any reason why he's…"

Dean waves his hands in a rough approximation of curves, and Castiel tilts his head. Dean sighs.

"Nevermind," he says. "Does he really need a reason?"

"Besides the fact that we're in small-town Alabama, and we're all men – " Castiel clears his throat. " – we all _appear to be_ men who are shacking up with each other," Gabriel said dryly. "No, I don't need much more reason than that."

"Appear to be," Sam repeats dazedly, and Gabriel shrugs.

"Angels aren't divided into physical genders the way humans are. And yeah, underneath this glamour I'm still in a male vessel, but lesser angels, like Castiel, can pick and choose as they wish."

"Wait," Dean says. "Wait, so Cas…all this time, Cas could've chosen a hot chick instead of the holy tax accountant? Well, _fuck_."

"That's exactly why I've got the glamour going," Gabriel says. "Because of the _fucking_. Or the frustrated lack of it, in your case. How do you think the rest of the world is going to react to me kissing Sam? Because I'm going to, you know. Frequently. And passionately."

"I don't get a say in this, do I?" But Sam doesn't look terribly put out by the idea.

Castiel opens his mouth to say something, but Dean, feeling his ears starting to burn, shoves himself up off the bed and grabs for his keys.

"Let's just go get the damn Spear," he grumbles.

~

The All-American Eat and Drinkery is roughly eighty percent bar, fifteen percent drunk customers, and five percent actual diner. When Sam sits down in one of the booths (Gabriel conveniently appearing at his side and crowding against him, like a particularly romantic barnacle), he's pretty sure that the leather he's touching has been cured in alcohol. Everything smells like cooking oil and fries and spilled tequila.

All in all, it's one of the nicer places he and Dean have ended up in. There aren't any bloodstains on the walls or carpet, and the girl who appears to take their order (her nametag reads 'Iris,' and Sam assumes, correctly, that she is the elder daughter mentioned on the website) is tan, and has very long legs, and even Castiel eyes her with some interest before bowing his head close to Dean's, discussing, in low voices…something. Sam hopes that Dean is trying to get more information out of Cas, about this Sword they're supposed to go after, about…everything. What's expected of them. Because Sam is so sick of fighting…he just wants to collect these relics and be able to arrange them a certain way, and _poof_. Lucifer gets locked back up in Hell, the angels all get sent back to Heaven. No fuss. No bloodshed.

He knows that isn't how it's going to turn out, but it doesn't keep him from wishing.

"We're on our honeymoon," Gabriel is saying to Iris. "Me and hubby here, and his brothers. Traveling the country! And I've _always_ wanted to see the South. So much history, and it's so _beautiful_ here!"

Sam thinks that Gabriel is probably hamming it up a _bit_ much, but Iris seems charmed. Dean winks at her, and she mumbles something about their drinks being 'on the house.'

It's disgusting, really. Sam kicks Gabriel's shin under the table, and the archangel immediately slides a palm along his thigh, squeezing. Which isn't the reaction he was looking for, but it soothes some of the weird, jealous _ache_ in his chest.

"Dude. You have issues," Dean says. As if he has any room to talk. Sam scowls at him for a moment, and then transfers his attention to the bar.

More specifically, to the Spear, mounted _above_ the bar. It looks…surprisingly non-relic-y. Sam knows that it's a Roman lance, but only because he had looked up pictures of them earlier. To anyone else, he imagines it might look like a particularly old fishing spear. He can just barely make out the carvings along the haft, spiraling up and culminating in elaborate symbols on the spearhead itself. He recognizes some of them as Enochian, but they're difficult to make out, and he suspects that some of those symbols are older than they appear to be. The whole thing is meticulously formed iron – it's no wonder that it's managed to weather the ages.

And, you know, being a blessed, biblical artifact probably helps, too.

"I'll have the two-handed burger with bacon and cheddar," Dean is saying. "And a side of coleslaw, and a Coke." Castiel looks like the very idea of a burger might make him sick. "And the South Pacific chicken salad for my friend, here. Sam? You feel like eating?"

"The salmon Caesar salad," Sam says absently, and Gabriel chimes in with, "And two chocolate milkshakes." Sam scowls, but Gabriel seems unrepentant. Sam supposes that there are worse things he could have been saddled with…and he hasn't let himself _indulge_ for so long.

He thinks that Gabriel might be taking that a little too seriously, but he isn't going to complain. Not here, at least. Not now.

Once Iris writes down their orders and vanishes back into the kitchen, Dean leans across the table while Castiel sits, quiet and still, beside him. "So," he says. "Plans, anybody? You two said that the Spear was…hiding itself, right? Is that going to be a problem?"

"We will need to carry the Spear physically," Castiel says. "If it has resisted our attempts to locate it, there is no way to determine how it will react to being…"

"Bamfed out," Gabriel offers, and Castiel nods, reluctantly.

"So we steal it," Sam says. Dean laughs. "Just like the old days, huh, Sammy?"

"Which means there's going to be breaking and entering," Gabriel says, with the sort of quiet relish normally reserved for finishing a painting or something like that. Sam doesn't want to know why it's being applied to the idea of stealing a holy relic. "I can help with that."

"If the Spear has to be carried…"

"No, no," Gabriel protests. He squeezes Sam's thigh again, resulting in an uncomfortable, 'please don't give me a boner in public' sort of shift. "I mean I can get you in, after hours. No one's here, I unlock the doors, turn off the alarm…Get in, get out. All very quick."

"It's really weird, hearing you talk like that when you have tits," Sam says. Well. Grumbles, maybe. Because Gabriel's breasts are distracting. _Very_ distracting.

Especially when Gabriel arches his spine like that.

Fortunately, Sam is saved by the arrival of Iris with their food. She sets down Dean's plate first, smiling at him. Castiel looks like he's five seconds away from choking her with her own hot pink scrunchie; Dean doesn't seem to notice. He digs into his burger after a short, heartfelt "Thanks!"

Sam prods at his salad. He isn't even sure why he got the salmon. It isn't like diners usually have very good seafood. Gabriel seems perfectly content with his milkshake, though. Sam watches him slurp at it, his stupidly pink lips wrapped around the straw and an errant curl falling over his forehead, and Sam really just wants to…

Sam closes his eyes. _Eat my salad_, he thinks, and Gabriel makes a disappointed noise at the back of his throat. He pulls off the straw with a wet _pop_, dainty brows furrowed.

"What's the point of having an awesome rack if you aren't actively _fantasizing_ about it," he demands, and Dean spits a mouthful of Coke back into his glass.

Sam moves his salad around on his plate and tries not to blush.

~

Gurley at night is surprisingly similar to Gurley during the day – there are a few more drunks perched on front porches, a few less children running around in the streets, but, all in all, it's very much the same. Dean feels oddly conspicuous driving the Impala around. But they need the car to be nearby, just in case they get caught. Gabriel (once again lacking breasts, _thank God_) assures them that they won't, that he's done this before, and Dean's sort of curious about that, but there's no way in hell he's ever going to ask. But, either way, he wants to be prepared. And since they can't just teleport the Spear with them, that means hauling it around the old-fashioned way: in the trunk of the Impala.

Dean parks in the empty lot of the diner, curling his fingers tight around the steering wheel, and then relaxing all at once. Castiel peers at him from the back seat. Sam, sitting next to him, doesn't respond beyond a slow, acknowledging blink.

"Dean," Castiel says. "Are you…alright?"

"Yeah, Cas," he responds, and then turns towards Sam, raising an eyebrow. "Sammy. After we get the Spear…remind me to buy a separate room."

Sam's brows shoot up somewhere into his hairline, and for an instant Dean is worried that he's going to say something, something like 'You've been complaining about me and Gabriel and now you're buying Castiel a whole extra room,' probably followed by 'You never paid for an extra room when _I_ was sleeping and you were bringing back chicks from bars,' and the reason behind that is because Dean has always liked seeing Sam in the morning, half-awake and glaring at him like if he tried hard enough he could set Dean's head on fire. It's a guilty pleasure and he would totally admit to it except he doesn't feel like sounding like an asshole right now. So he just nods at Sam, and Sam makes a noise that's sort of like an angry hippo or something, and then shoves his way out of the car.

Gabriel is nowhere to be seen. Scouting ahead, or unlocking the doors for them, something like that, and that's probably why Sam is being so pissy, because he can't see his angel boyfriend and said angel boyfriend has a habit of being both promiscuous and violent when he isn't being carefully observed.

It's sort of like his brother is dating (fucking? Fraternizing with?) a sociopath, but for all the comparisons he's made, Gabriel is still ten times better than Ruby. Dean will never say that out loud, but that doesn't make it any less true.

"Let's do this, then," he says, and follows Sam out of the car, Castiel drifting after them like a stoic ghost. His feet barely make any noise on the pavement. If Sam got the sociopath, then Dean definitely got the ninja, so it all works out for the best in the end.

The windows of the All-American Eat and Drinkery are dark, and the place smells marginally less like grease and substantially more like alcohol (and like someone had too _much_ alcohol – the unmistakable stench of vomit wafts around the parking lot like a wind of ill fortune). Dean wrinkles his nose against the smell, and then pulls down the sleeve of his jacket, wrapping it around his fingers and palm before he grabs hold of the front door's handle. He and Sam aren't stupid – they've learned from their mistakes.

As Gabriel had promised, the door is unlocked. It clicks open as Dean turns the handle, and when the two of them step through the doorway, no alarms are triggered. The night is silent and still, and Dean lets out a breath he hadn't even been aware of holding. He's not sure why he's so jittery – this is exactly like a dozen other hunts that have involved he or Sam picking a lock to get access to a building after hours. And this isn't a bank, or an art gallery, it's a _diner_. If anything, that makes it easier.

Still, Sam is rabbit-still beside him, every muscle tense as Dean turns to look at him. Castiel is a silent, reassuring presence at his back, standing just beyond the threshold of the door.

"Something isn't right," Sam says. "I can feel it."

"Perhaps we should wait for Gabriel to return," Cas says, and, seriously, _return_? And here Dean was under the impression that the guy was just hanging around, invisible. What's so important that he's abandoned them in the middle of an…admittedly low-risk breaking and entering job?

Dean opens his mouth to ask exactly that, and the door slams shut behind them, so hard that the glass rattles in the windows. He can see Castiel on the other side, but he can't _hear_ him, and the angel's expression is more than worried. He's _afraid_.

"I get the feeling that wasn't supposed to happen," Dean offers, reaches for the gun tucked into his belt. Sam reaches for his knife (it hasn't been _Ruby's_ for a while, now) at the same time, all tight lines of muscle and power. Dean can practically _feel_ it, how much his brother's changed. First the demon blood, and now this thing with Gabriel…he would be worried Sam wasn't human if it weren't for the fact that he still snores, and he bitches when Dean orders for him in restaurants, and all he has to do is eat a single burrito and suddenly he's like, _Chernobyl_ levels of radioactive.

"Was beginning to wonder when you boys were going to show up."

They both turn towards the kitchen at the same time, Castiel hovering behind them, just beyond the glass, and now that Dean looks he can see why the angel isn't just smashing through, or teleporting in – sometime between that afternoon and now, someone's taken what looks like a gallon of blood and had themselves a finger-painting party. Banishing sigils and anti-angel wards have been scrawled across the tables, the walls, the _ceiling_.

And he assumes that the four people emerging from the kitchen are responsible.

"For a while we thought you might've split town," Iris Caron says. She's still long, and tan, and beautiful, but her eyes are black as pitch, black as _nothing_. The younger girl standing beside her must be her little sister – Dean never got the chance to see her. And behind them, the parents, flanking their daughters like bodyguards.

"Thought you said demons can't go near this thing," Dean grits out.

"They can't touch it," Sam murmurs. "But they don't need to touch it to try and keep us from taking it."

"Way to take all the fun out of the explanation," the sister pouts – Daisy. Her name is Daisy, Dean remembers that from the website. He wonders if there's anything left of her in there, or if it's only the demon, massive and writhing and _dirty_.

"Please tell me you have your snake," he mutters, and Sam shakes his head. "_Sam_. Why don't you have your snake?!"

"Because I left it in the car! It's not like I'm used to carrying it around, Dean!"

Sam's mouth pulls into a snarl. Dean has a split second in which he can see exactly what's going to happen, what Sam's planning, and then the moment is over and Sam is _moving_, yanking his knife from his belt, throwing it a smooth, straight line. It slams into the chest of the wife and the demon in her _screams_, bright light arching under her skin and erupting like lava from her eyes and mouth. And Dean hates this, hates it so much that sometimes he thinks he can't breathe for the thought of all the innocent people they've killed, but then he doesn't have time to think because the husband and the two daughters launch themselves across the room, snarling like animals. Sam brings up his hand, slamming the heel of his palm into the husband's face; Dean hears the dull crunch of cartilage, but doesn't have time to appreciate it because the daughters are turning on _him_, and in such close quarters his gun is next to useless.

He shoves a hand into his pocket, looking for a flask of holy water that isn't there, and they've made so many rookie mistakes tonight that Dean is honestly ashamed of himself. Having the help of Gabriel and Castiel has made them complacent. And now the demons are backing him towards the bar, and he has no choice but to move with them.

"Guess what, Dean?" Iris says, Daisy beside her, her mouth huge and her teeth too big for her face. "We're going to get a _huge_ bonus for dragging you back downstairs! Just imagine! An eternity to play with you…The first thing I'm going to do is flay the skin off that pretty face of yours. Bet'cha angels won't want to fuck you _then_."

Dean can see Sam struggling with the other demon over by the windows. Castiel has gone, but he wouldn't have been able to help anyways. Dean scowls, takes quick aim, and then shoots the son of a bitch in the side. It's not about to kill the demon, but it slows it down long enough for Sam to slam it into the wall, then make a go for the knife, still buried to the hilt in the dead woman near the kitchen.

The sisters snarl at him, drawing closer.

_'I have a gun that's mostly useless,'_ he thinks, _'A brother that's busy and two angels that have gone AWOL, no holy water, and Sam has the only demon-killing weapon in the…'_

Except…no. No, he doesn't.

He can see the realization dawn on the faces of the sisters mere moments before he takes the chance; they scream at him, a horrible cacophony that he remembers as being common in Hell, just as he flings himself over the bar, scattering bottles and glasses everywhere. Glass smashes against the floor, falls over him as he reaches up as far as he can and _yanks_ the Spear down from its mantle. It comes surprisingly easily, is if it had never been bolted down correctly.

Or as if it had been waiting for him.

There's no sudden jolt of recognition, no moment shared between he and the Spear. There's no thunder and lightning, no sudden rainsqualls, and certainly no Heavenly choir from above. There's just Dean, and the Spear warm and smooth in his hand, fitting there like that's where it belongs. The weight of it is perfect, the balance sublime, and he has absolutely no trouble hefting it and then _thrusting_ it, out and out, for what seems like forever. The Spear itself is easily six and a half feet long, probably more, but Dean's almost positive that the two demons are standing further away than that. That they've _recoiled_.

And yet the Spear has absolutely no trouble spanning the bar and then lodging itself, surprisingly easily, in Iris' shoulder. The demon stares down at it, and Dean can feel his arm beginning to tremble.

"Exorcizo te, omnis immundus spiritus," he can hear Sam chanting, distantly, like through water.

"You fucker," Iris spits; something like black oil or sludge drips from her mouth. He's vaguely aware of Daisy, her tilting her head back and screaming as pitch-dark smoke pours from her, but almost all of his attention is focused on the elder sister, on the black lines spreading from the point of the Spear buried in her shoulder. Like it's poisoning her, the _demon_, from the inside out. "You _fucker_. I'm going to kill you. I'm going to drag you back to Hell and wear your ribcage for a _hat_. You're going to _burn_, Winchester."

Dean grimaces. "Yeah," he says. "But until then."

And he _twists_.

The demon expels itself from Iris' body, not in smoke, but in more of that black sludge. It oozes from her mouth, her eyes, her ears and nose, and the smell is somewhere between charred meat and a compost heap. Dean holds on to the Spear, unable to cover his nose and mouth, as the gunk drips down her face and puddles around her feet. Iris stays standing for another few seconds, held there by the point of the Spear, and then she slips backwards. Dean's arm jerks as the Spearhead dislodges itself, and Iris crumples to the ground. She lands right beside her sister; they're both breathing, shallowly, but they're _breathing_, and Dean didn't even land a fatal blow. He stares at the Spear, now resting against the bartop. The tip of it is coated in that black sludge, and Dean makes a face at it.

"Holy shit," he hears Sam say, and that's about the same time that the wall of the restaurant splits open. There's a distant rumble, like thunder or a passing train, and it gets louder and louder until the sound of it aches in Dean's ears and vibrates in his bones until he's pretty sure that he's just going to shake himself apart. The crack in the wall widens, and Dean notices that Sam doesn't have his hands clasped over his ears, isn't flinching, he's just _standing_ there, like this is totally expected. Dean also notices that he has yet to drop the Spear. It's like his fingers are reluctant to let it go, and his brain his no conscious say in the matter.

The rumbling stops, and Dean cautiously squints against the billowing plaster dust.

Castiel strides through the rubble, Gabriel following closely behind him; the Spear hums in Dean's hand, a subsonic purr that he feels more than he hears.

He plants his palm on the bar, avoiding shards of broken glass (it hardly matters, he can feel them grinding into his arms and hands anyways), swinging himself over the top of it as Castiel approaches. There's an intensity in his expression that Dean should be used to by now, but somehow it's _more_. More than what it usually is.

"Guess you two don't really need the cavalry," Gabriel says, and Dean lets the Spear fall to the ground at his feet (if it's already lasted this long, dropping it from a height of a few feet is hardly going to do any damage), and grabs the lapels of Castiel's coat, pulling him close. His hands are bleeding everywhere, but he can't bring himself to care. He'll buy Cas a new shirt. Fuck, he'll buy him a whole new _wardrobe_.

"I was worried," Cas says quietly. "I may have instructed Gabriel to use more force than was strictly…"

Dean doesn't give him the chance to finish. He just pulls Castiel to him and kisses him, kisses him like they have all the time in the world and Dean is a drowning man and Castiel is air. Kisses him like he loves him.

And maybe he does.

A little.


	5. The Revolving Sword

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the Winchesters go knock, knock, knockin' on Heaven's door, and the beginning of the end closes in.

Sam realizes, at some point, that it was always meant to be the four of them. Him, and Dean, and Gabriel and Castiel - they were always meant to come together like this. Maybe they weren't meant to cleave to each other quite so tightly, but he can't think of any other reason for there to be four different relics, one for each of them. Gabriel has all but said that the Nehushtan will only respond to Sam. It has something to do with personality types, and, yes, with bloodlines. Dean tried to touch it, once; he'd said that even getting near the thing was painful, like it could sense his intentions and wasn't pleased with them.

But Sam picks it up, and the small, copper snake only ever feels warm and a little bit electric in his palms.

It's similar, what Dean has going on with the Spear. Sam can stand to pick it up, but he can't hold on to it for very long, not unless he wants his palms burned. But Dean picks it up and uses it without even thinking. When Dean calls for it, the Spear answers, appearing in his hand even if Dean is standing dozens of feet away. It's a handy trick. Dean always looks surprised when it smacks against his palm, and Sam always laughs.

Dean can't touch Gabriel's Horn, but Sam can. Gabriel explains, haltingly, achingly slowly, that it's because of how they have tied their souls together. The Horn recognizes some piece of Gabriel lodged inside of Sam, and so it treats him as though he's an extension of the archangel, which is kind of insulting, but he figures that a hunk of Grace-forged metal doesn't really know any better. It's the same with Dean and Castiel – Cas can pick the Spear up, can use it, can even call it to his hand, but he's all but said that it's too difficult for him to do it more than once or twice a day. Dean, on the other hand, has no problems at all.

Dean has been doing exactly that – practicing with the Spear – for what seems like hours, now, aiming for the makeshift targets that he's painted on the side of a rickety old barn. The Holiday Inn is miles behind them, but now they carry a resonance with them, for lack of a better word. Sam looks at Dean, and he can see where Castiel has marked his brother. Not just the handprint on his arm, but he thinks he can see the exact place where Castiel reached inside and touched Dean's soul for the second time.

It's kind of disturbing, but he can live with it. What's more interesting is his new sense of Gabriel – it's ten times stronger than it was before, but it's also a lot easier to push aside. Not to ignore, exactly, since he's always aware of the archangel, but he doesn't find it difficult to focus on more important things when Gabriel's around.

"Aw, Sam," Gabriel breathes against his ear. "What's more important than me?"

Sam tilts his head away, swatting ineffectually at Gabriel's shoulder. The archangel huffs laughter, then drops down into the dirt next to him. They watch Dean for a few moments, effortlessly hitting the targets time after time. He doesn't always hit near the center, but the Spear slices through the wood like it's butter, so Sam doesn't think it matters all that much.

"Where's Castiel?" Sam asks, eventually.

"Sulking."

Which is what Sam should be doing, too, by all rights. He's more than earned it, after what Gabriel pulled on them last night. After what he told them.

"The last relic," he had said, "is in Heaven. And there's only one way for you two to get there."

Heaven. Gabriel had needed to explain it – how there are two different versions of Heaven: the place where humans go (which is more like a series of interconnected cubicles, from the way he'd described it), and the place where angels live. Castiel had been a stony, silent presence beside Dean throughout the explanation, of Kingdoms and Gates, and yeah, Gardens. How the relic they're after is in the very center of what was once known as the Garden of Eden.

A sword. No, the Sword. The Sword that was placed at the gates of Eden to prevent Adam and Eve from returning.

"That's a load of bullshit," Gabriel had said. "The whole 'they saw their nakedness and were ashamed' bit. They were ashamed that they'd been caught. That was all."

Sam still has no idea how all of this fits in with things like evolution, the Big Bang, everything that science has taught him is true. He can picture Dean's reaction to that, though. Jesus Christ, Sammy, we've got bigger things to worry about than your stupid philosophy debates.

"If we returned to Heaven, Zachariah and Michael would sense us in a second. You're the only ones who can go," Gabriel says slowly, and Sam is drawn back to the present. He watches Dean lean against the side of the barn, the old wood creaking, even more fragile now that it's been peppered with holes from the Spear. Castiel appears with the slow, dragging crackle of ozone and flapping wings. He holds out what looks like a plastic water bottle to Dean, and smiles faintly when Dean takes it and drinks deeply. Their bond has changed Castiel, but for the better, Sam thinks. It's easier to tell when he's feeling something, now.

"I know that," Sam murmurs. "Castiel's the one who's angry about it, not me."

"You're angry about something."

Sam forgets that part, too, sometimes. That this whole 'bond' thing is a two-way street. Gabriel knows what he's feeling, if not necessarily what he's thinking, all the time, now. It's taking some getting used to. Sam can only imagine how Dean is coping with this new weirdness.

"You told us," he says slowly, "that how we're connected will be helpful. That, because we're tied to the two of you, we'll be able to come back…easier."

He very carefully doesn't say 'come back to life.' Sam is still trying to deal with the whole idea of dying. Again.

"It's the truth," Gabriel says. He watches Dean clap Castiel on the shoulder, then curl the angel's fingers around the haft of the Spear, holding it, their hands almost clasped together. Castiel doesn't seem to have any difficulty, so long as Dean is touching it, too. "We'll be like your bungee cords. You dive in, we snap you right back up once you've got the sword."

"I just…" Sam closes his eyes. "Is that the only reason you bonded with me? So this would be easier?"

Please don't lie to me, he thinks, knowing that Gabriel will hear the echo of his thoughts. Please. Just tell me the truth.

Gabriel's leg nudges against Sam's, a flood of longing washing over him. Gabriel's longing for Heaven, and his equally powerful longing for Sam.

"It's a perk," he says softly. "It's a perk I've been aware of, ever since we started going after the relics. But it wasn't the driving force behind my decision to bond with you. Do you know when I made the first connection? When I first realized that I wanted you?"

"Herpexia ad," Sam guesses, because before that he'd never met Gabriel. Only the Trickster.

"Don't be an idiot," Gabriel chastises. "Broward County. Little place called the Mystery Spot."

"You mean where you killed my brother?"

Gabriel spreads his arms, smiling. "Hey. I brought him back, didn't I? And lemme tell you something: that was never in the plan. I was trying to teach you a lesson, and lessons don't sink in if you undo everything you've worked towards at the end. I brought him back because you asked me to."

"Because I begged," Sam murmurs.

"No. Because seeing you like that made me realize how similar we were."

"Seeing me like what?"

"Dark. Desperate. Broken. All of the above."

There's a distant thunk as Castiel flings the Spear, with Dean's help, and manages to hit the edge of one of the targets. The wall of the barn splinters further, and slowly starts to topple inwards – Dean lets out a whoop of excitement, cheering it on. Out of all of them, Dean is taking the whole 'you have to die and go to Heaven' thing the best. Upon hearing that he would be able to take the Spear with him, he'd warmed to the idea, largely because of the potential for stabbing Zachariah in the throat on his home turf.

"So…this has been a long time coming," Sam murmurs. Gabriel nudges up against his side, all warm, grasping hands. One immediately finds Sam's neck, turns his head so that Gabriel can look him in the eye, and the other strays to his hip, where it rests, like Gabriel isn't quite sure if he's allowed to go further.

"I've just been waiting for you to say 'yes.'"

"Score one for most disturbing way of phrasing it ever," Sam complains, and Gabriel takes it as permission to tuck his hand into Sam's back pocket. Holding him.

"Hey, lovebirds! Time to leave!"

"Trust your brother to ruin the moment," Gabriel murmurs, and presses a quick kiss to Sam's lips.

"He wants to get this over with," Sam responds. "So do I, actually. Where are we going again?"

"Someplace quiet, and safe. Real secluded. You'll like it."

"Perfect place to die," Sam says glumly.

Gabriel doesn't try to comfort him. Which is to be expected, really. Sam thinks he would be more freaked out if Gabriel told him it was going to be okay. Dean tramps up the small slope towards them, ruffles Sam's hair with dusty, sweat-damp hands as he passes. Gabriel laughs; Sam is surrounded by people (beings, really) who find his misfortune amusing. He shoves Gabriel away, and then stands, brushing old grass and dirt from the back of his jeans. Gabriel soon follows suite.

"We've got a ways to drive," Dean says. "Cas says this place we're going is up in the mountains."

"The Rocky Mountains, specifically," Castiel says. Sam stares at him.

"We're in Alabama," he says faintly. "Please tell me that you're going to teleport us there."

Gabriel wiggles his fingers in a motion that could mean 'yes,' or, alternately, 'I enjoy making odd gestures at you.' Sam thinks that it's, unfortunately, the latter.

"Sorry, cupcake," Gabriel says brightly. "Me and Castiel here have to keep making sure that Zachariah and his cronies don't find you until you're good and dead."

"And Hadraniel as well," Castiel murmurs. "I am worried by his inactivity."

"Don't look a gift horse in the mouth," Dean advises. "If this dude is planning something, we'll figure it out, and deal with it when it happens. And if Zachariah shows up…" Dean hefts the Spear, twirling it. It's inexpert, but Sam can see where the practice is beginning to help. "Well, I've been wondering how well this works on angels."

"I would imagine it is less effective, considering its divine nature," Castiel offers. "But…I could be wrong."

"We'll join you when you reach Idaho," Gabriel says. He touches the back of Sam's hand – it's the closest to comforting that he's ever going to get. "We can take you the rest of the way from there. Think of it as…oh, I don't know. Brotherly bonding. It's been a while since you two sluggers have had time to reconnect, hasn't it?"

"If you ever call me 'slugger' again I'm going to punch you in the throat," Dean says.

"Uh, yeah," Sam agrees. "That goes for me, too."

Gabriel shrugs, and then takes a step away from Sam's side, a movement that brings him closer to Castiel. The two look at each other, and Sam gets the feeling that they're…communicating, somehow. No, it's more than just a feeling – it's like hearing someone talking through a closed door, muffled and far away.

They're probably deciding on how to stall Zachariah, he thinks. It's something he hasn't thought of before…at least, not all that much. Zachariah shows up seemingly at random anyways, so he'd never considered that Gabriel and Castiel were actively trying to shield him and Dean. Yet another thing he owes to the archangel.

"C'mon, Sam," Dean prompts, and when Sam turns to look his brother is already halfway to the Impala, Spear slung over his shoulder like a fishing rod. He calls back as he loads the weapon into the trunk of the car, half-shouting, "We're wasting daylight! Let's get moving already!"

"Go," Gabriel says softly. "We'll find you again, don't worry. Not too hard to track down that beast of a car."

"Don't let Dean hear you say that," Sam says, but he's smiling as he turns to follow his brother. It has been a while since it was just him and Dean – a few months, at least. He's kind of excited, he isn't going to lie. The thought of him, his brother, the car, and the endless highway stretching out in front of them…it soothes something in his chest, something he wasn't even aware that it was aching. Sam slides into the passenger seat of the Impala, and it feels a little bit like coming home.

He glances out the window just in time to see both Gabriel and Castiel disappear.

"I feel like some Sabbath," Dean says, rooting through his seemingly endless collection of tapes. "If you bitch about it, I'm going to punch you, because I have had a hell of a day."

Sam could retaliate with the fact that so has he. Learning that you're going to be dying and infiltrating Heaven is hardly the sort of thing that good news is made of. But he doesn't, and Dean drums his fingers against the steering wheel as Paranoid blares from the speakers, and the road starts to unravel like thread before them.

~

It's been such a long time since it was just them, no angels and no demons acting as intermediaries, that at first Dean isn't quite sure what to do with Sam.

They drive a lot, of course. Straight through, Idaho is only a day and a half away, but with pit stops for gas and food, and sleep, added into the mix, it means they're still a few days away from their destination. Which means a few days of just him and Sam, the way it used to be.

You're a pussy if you think about how intimidating that is, Dean scolds himself. But it is...a little awkward, at first. What are they supposed to talk about? 'How's your Heavenly marriage going?' 'Starting to crave angel blood, yet?' Dean has the feeling that asking either of those questions would get him punched in the face, regardless of his older brother status.

But then Sam reaches for the radio, presumably to remove the Black Sabbath tape that Dean has in, and Dean smacks his hand without even needing to look. Sam glowers at him, but there's something like a smile hiding at the corners of his mouth.

And suddenly, just like that, things are cool again.

"So, we're dying," Dean says, because broaching a subject with caution is for total dicks. Better to just dive right in. Fortunately, Sam isn't bothered, or else he's so used to how Dean thinks that he's been expecting it (which is entirely possible). "How much of your bucket list did you check off?"

"I don't know if it counts as 'getting married' if there was never any paperwork for it. So…half of one?"

"Man, I never even got to see the Grand Canyon," Dean complains. "This sucks."

"We're coming back, you know. Gabriel said…"

"Yeah, I heard what Gabriel said. But think, Sammy. We're gonna be mostly defenseless in the middle of angel territory. I'll bet you money that Michael and Doucheface are gonna swoop down and start harassing us."

"Gabriel and Castiel have been keeping us hidden down here," Sam says quietly. "What makes you think they won't be able to in Heaven?"

"Uh, because it's Heaven. And, last I checked? Cas and Gabriel were sort of erased from the divine VIP list. Don't tell me you haven't noticed it."

Sam knows exactly what he's talking about, Dean can see it in his eyes. Gabriel isn't even his angel, and Dean's noticed that the guy has difficulty manifesting things the way he used to, that he no longer teleports them long distances, preferring to ride in the car with Castiel, and with Sam. Dean thinks that something about that goes against the very nature of an archangel, so he doubts that Gabriel is just doing it for kicks.

Sam purses his lips, and falls silent.

And then, "I don't want to think about it. What happens if…"

"If you don't want to think about it, then don't fuckin' talk about it, either," Dean snaps, and Sam closes his mouth.

Ozzy Osbourne wails the chorus to Killing Yourself To Live, and Dean nearly gags on the irony.

They drive until the sky is a dark purple bruise, and Sam starts making uncomfortable noises that translate roughly into statistics about car accidents and driving at night and how the two are related. Dean thinks that Sam probably just doesn't want to be cramped up in the passenger seat any more – Dean knows that he hasn't been sleeping well. Not when they were at the Holiday Inn (which, granted, was sort of Dean's doing), and not in the motel that came after – Sam wakes often in the middle of the night, and it's not always to get a drink of water. Sometimes he just lays there, listening to Dean breathe in the next bed, and Dean thinks this whole 'saving the world' thing is getting to Sam more than he's letting on.

Dean's just glad that Lucifer hasn't been invading Sam's dreams. He isn't sure if it's Cas or Gabriel he has to thank for that, but he's grateful either way.

They pull into the lot of an empty-looking motel (thankfully, it doesn't appear to be themed around anything other than the idea that 'this is the middle of nowhere, suck it up or get lost'). Dean pays for a room, and the manager doesn't even bat an eye as she hands over their key. They might be on their own again (at least, for a little while), but things have definitely changed.

Dean wonders when he started missing people assuming him and Sam were gay.

The room is small enough that they have to shove their duffels under their beds, but aside from that it's exactly like any other motel in any other state, although blessedly lacking in any of the more hideous decorative schemes. Dean starts pulling out handfuls of clothes, sorting them into 'need to be washed' and 'need to be burned' piles. Sam, after a moment, starts doing the same. It's easier, and faster, if they just end up doing their laundry together, rather than separately. After all, there's no way Dean is going to mistake one of Sam's shirts for his own.

The room is full of comfortable silence, and Dean revels in it.

"So, what do you feel like eating?" he asks, once it becomes apparent that Sam is absorbed in sorting his laundry. When he's distracted is the best time to insert for Dean to toss out his own ideas, because Sam is less likely to complain.

Sure enough… "Um," Sam says vaguely, searching through the pockets of his jeans before neatly folding them, which Dean totally doesn't understand, because it's all going to get tossed into the washer anyways. "Dunno. Not really hungry right now."

"We haven't had wings in a long time," Dean offers. Sam, because he's a complete girl, doesn't like buffalo wings. Something about finger foods in general make him squeamish. But maybe there's a pizza place nearby that has pies and wings, and then Sam won't bitch at him for the rest of the night…

Sam is staring at him.

"What," Dean says defensively.

"I know what you're doing," Sam says. There's a note of exasperated fondness in his voice that Dean hasn't heard in…Jesus, months, it feels like. "If wings will make you happy, go and get wings. But you better bring back a pizza or something, because I'm not spending the rest of the night smelling like bleu cheese."

Dean makes a noise that he thinks sounds more offended than he meant it to, because Sam's expression softens…and Dean abruptly realizes why he isn't putting up a fuss.

"Dude," he says, "are you thinking of this like, our last meal or something? Fuck that noise, Sam. We're coming back."

"Dean…"

"I know you said you don't want to think about it, but obviously you are. So just…trust me, Sam. We are going to be coming back. Cas and Gabe will keep us safe up there, and when we wake up we'll kick Lucifer's ass, and then I'll buy you a…a salad or something. One of those big, leafy fuckers with bean sprouts on top." He shuts his mouth before he ends up saying anything else – he can practically hear himself saying the words 'and we'll all laugh about this later,' which would be an awful, blatant lie. He doesn't think they'll ever laugh about this. Ever.

Sam is looking at him. Not like he's crazy, just…sort of fond. Fuck, he's smiling a little.

"What," Dean snaps, because Sam was about to start sobbing into his neatly folded socks like, twenty seconds ago.

"You called him 'Gabe,'" Sam says. Dean stares at him.

"What?"

"You called Gabriel 'Gabe,'" Sam repeats. "You only nickname the people you're close to."

Dean struggles to think of an example that proves the opposite.

"Bobby," he says finally.

"You've called him 'old man' more than once. That counts."

Fuck.

Sam turns his gaze down, smirking at his stupid plaid shirts and his stupid gigantic socks. Dean points at him.

"You," he says severely, "are getting the biggest meat lover's pizza I can find. If they can put scrapple on it, I'm getting scrapple. And that's all you're getting." He grabs his keys off the nightstand, leaving the rest of his laundry for later. It'll keep. On the other hand, the pizza, and his growling stomach, will not.

"You just keep pretending," Sam calls after him, just before the door shuts in his face. "Now I know you approve of him!"

"Approve of him, my ass," Dean mutters, heading for the Impala. "He's a bit better than Ruby, that's all."

He ends up buying a custom-made pizza with two types of bacon, ham, sausage, pepperoni, and extra cheese. It's more like an open-faced sandwich than a pizza, and Dean doesn't even get any breadsticks, so Sam has to chow down on his greasy monstrosity while Dean enjoys his delicious wings.

Sweet, meat-flavored vengeance is his.

~

The drive to Idaho is a long one, but, eventually, they stop passing groves of cypress trees and start cruising down flat and endless roads, surrounded by fields of tall, yellow-green hay; sheaves of the stuff have been bundled up with twine and left to dry out in the sun, and everything is tinged with varying shades of gold. The drive will only take a few days, but Sam finds himself wishing that it would never end – he and Dean don't talk all that much, but, then again, they never really did in the first place. The hours they spend on the road are filled with comfortable silences, something they've had precious little of in the past few months.

Every so often, Sam feels a shiver of recognition wash over him, and then the sense-memory of ozone and pine that he has come to associate with Gabriel. He likes to think that these moments are indicative of how hard Gabriel and Castiel are working to keep them safe, even despite their own waning power.

They drive until the sun dips down below the horizon, and Sam forces Dean to stop for the night, because driving all day is more tiring than anyone would ever imagine. Not to mention he's hungry - Sam's not a huge fan of meat lover's pizza in the first place (he prefers pepperoni on its own), so he's spent most of the day feeling heavy and vaguely sick, and he'd only just managed to eat half a croissant when they had stopped for breakfast earlier. That was hours ago, though, and now Sam feels like he could probably eat like, an entire turkey all by himself.

Dean grumbles about it, but he pulls into the parking lot of the first reputable-looking motel they come across, and Sam counts that as a win on his part.

The Watonga Motel is older than what they usually go for – they've found that the older a building is, the more likely it is to be haunted – but it's clean, and the sheets are turned back at the corners, and the woman behind the counter gives them their room key with a cheerful smile. It's almost disturbing, how good their luck has been so far – they've driven across three states and they have yet to run across a single vengeful spirit or wayward shapeshifter. Sam wonders if that's the work of Gabriel and Castiel, too, but then he decides that it's probably because word has gotten out that the apocalypse is coming to a head. Detroit isn't going to happen, but the Winchesters are going to do something just as stupid, and just as risky.

It's still loads better than the inkling of an idea that Sam had been cultivating before. At least this way he won't ever have to say 'yes' to Lucifer, and even if they die, they're going to die fighting.

His laundry is capable of waiting until tomorrow, so Sam piles everything underneath his bed and then wearily sits down on the edge of the mattress, rolling his shoulders until there's a loud pop, and then a sudden release of tension.

"Jesus," Dean says. "What'd you do, fall asleep at a weird angle?" Dean sits on his own bed and kicks off his shoes; Sam watches one of them fly halfway across the room, coming to rest next to the television, but Dean doesn't seem to care. Sam will mock him in the morning when he can't find anything at all.

"Nah," Sam answers. "Just…stress."

"Tell me about it."

"You'll just snipe at me if I do. You're too manly for feelings, remember?"

Dean pulls off his right sock and hucks it at Sam. He only just barely dodges it, and then carefully nudges it over the edge of his bed, so that it falls and is lost somewhere amidst the shadows and Sam's duffel. He absently twists the Nehushtan around his wrist, eyeing Dean. With one foot bare and dark rings underneath his eyes, he looks…surprisingly fragile. Sam tries to think of something that will cheer them both up. He leans over the edge of the bed, rummaging through his duffel in order to pull out his laptop and power cord.

"Hey," Sam says quietly. Pretty sure there's a Romero marathon on Sci-Fi tonight. Want to watch and make fun of how wrong he got zombies? I saw a Chinese place on the way in…I could go pick up some food, maybe some beer."

Dean stares at him. Sam raises an eyebrow. "What?"

"Nothing," Dean says. "But if you put any of that hot pepper sauce in my food, I'm going to kick your ass. Bitch."

"Jerk," Sam says fondly. He grabs the room key and heads out – the Chinese place he saw is only a block or two away, and he can grab some beer from the liquor store that's conveniently just down the street.

They end up watching the Romero marathon until well past midnight, simultaneously too wired to sleep and too tired to move farther than their respective beds. Dean spills rice on his chest and laughs at the hordes of unrealistic zombies shambling across the screen.

Sam is just glad to hear Dean laugh. The Nehushtan is a warm weight against his skin, and he eventually drifts off, lulled to sleep by the smell of cashew chicken and the sound of the hungry dead.

The next morning, Dean wakes him up by piling laundry on top of Sam's face. Which, yeah, Sam's grateful for the reminder that he needs to wash his clothes in the first place, but he thinks Dean could have been more tactful about it. They bring their clothes to the nearest laundromat and Dean amuses himself by reading Sam's horoscope.

"The world is not on your side," Dean reads loudly, "but it's not against you, either. You may feel as if everything is just passing you by."

Luckily, it doesn't take much to distract Dean – Sam points out that the gas station across the street carries Zagnuts, and Dean dashes off to stock up. Sam resigns himself to annoying crunching for the rest of the ride, but it gives him time to hide the newspaper Dean was reading.

They hit the road again, heading for Oklahoma's panhandle, both of them wanting to avoid Kansas if at all possible. Dean drums his fingers restlessly against the steering wheel, his anxiety becoming almost palpable with every mile that brings them closer to Idaho. Colorado is beautiful, all rolling hills and cool, dry air, but Sam barely notices the scenery. He wishes they could stop, if only for a few hours, in order to rest…actually rest, not just to sleep until they can keep driving.

But he knows the likelihood of that happening is slim to none.

From Colorado they drive up into Wyoming taking the back roads and passing miles and miles of picturesque scenery: rolling mountains, ponds and tiny lakes hidden in copses of pine trees. There's something about the West Coast that's always soothed Sam, some muted sense of peace. He realizes that he misses driving up to northern California with friends from college, with Jess, but the realization does not bring pain with it, only a vague melancholy that dissipates as soon as he closes his eyes and breathes in, one long and shuddering pull of air.

When he opens his eyes, Dean is looking at him, though not unkindly.

They keep driving.

~

Idaho is half desert and half wild, winter forest, separated by a string of mountains that stab at the sky with permanently snow-encrusted peaks. They drive through plains that are dotted with dusty hills, rife with fragrant sage and bright yellow beeplants, blanketed with low scrub brush that looks withered, but isn't. The air is dry enough and hot enough that they roll down the windows instead of turning on the air conditioning, and Dean drives with one elbow hanging out the open window, letting the breeze wash over him. Sam leans against the door, head cradled in the crook of his elbow – it's oddly familiar, and it takes Dean a few minutes to place it: Sam was sleeping like that when Gabriel dropped in on them, when he'd told Dean that Sam loves the Beatles. That he sings in his sleep.

Dean softly hums the first few notes of "Girl," and smiles when the corner of Sam's mouth twitches, and he makes a breathy, half-asleep sound that could, conceivably, be called tuneful.

Then Sam blearily opens his eyes, and Dean looks away, self-conscious.

"We're almost there," he announces. 'There' being Boise, the state's capital – and then from there it's a three-hour drive up into the mountains to reach Stanley. It means that they'll be driving well into the evening, rather than stopping for the night, as they have been; prolonging their journey in order to avoid a few hours of darkness is just stupid, in Dean's opinion. "You want to stop somewhere and get something to eat, first?"

Sam rubs at his eyes with one hand, stifling a truly tremendous yawn with the other. He almost looks like a little kid again, except he's giant and his hair is slightly less ridiculous, because he can be relied on to get his own haircuts instead of Dean trimming it himself.

"Dunno," he says eventually, and Dean shrugs. He's not particularly hungry – knowing that you're driving to your death, literally, will do that to you. "Maybe we could pick something up along the way?" Sam looks hopeful – it's weird, how much faith he has in Gabriel…and Castiel, as well. He trusts them, not only with his life, but also with his death. Which strikes Dean as being…far too intimate.

He trusts Castiel with himself, but not with Sam. He doubts he'll ever trust anyone else with Sam.

"We'll grab some Burger King or something," Dean acquiesces. "Go all out, get that burger that's got like, four patties on it, and six slices of bacon. And mayonnaise."

"Stop, you're gonna give me a stomachache just talking about it," Sam groans, but laughter follows on the end of it, and Dean nudges the car past sixty, grinning. He's not sure if it's a manic grin or not, but it's entirely possible that he's staring down the highway like it's personally offended him, because Sam looks…a little worried. The laughter fades from the lines of his shoulders.

"Drive a little faster, why don't you," Gabriel says. "It's not like you're fragile and mortal or anything."

Dean just barely manages to keep the car on the road – as it is, he swerves dangerously, and then brings his baby skidding to a stop along the roadside, absurdly glad that he's wearing a seatbelt, although he doubts Gabriel would let them get this far only to allow them to die in a car accident.

Right?

"Jesus," Dean breathes, and catches Castiel's eyes in the rearview mirror – the angel looks marginally concerned, but not 'worried about Dean's death' concerned. At least…not yet, he doesn't. Sam twists around in his seat, reaching back for Gabriel with one hand. The archangel obliges by briefly curling their fingers together, and then letting go again – it's a moment that Dean could do without seeing, really.

"Get a room," he complains. "And next time, don't almost wreck my car."

"Take a chill pill, Dean-o," Gabriel says. "You're almost there."

"These mountains are shrouded from the eyes of Heaven," Castiel says softly. "There are many such places, but few can be reached by humans. You will be safe here, and we shall be able to focus on keeping your souls united, and bringing them back intact."

"United?" Sam asks, and Dean's glad, really, because somehow, whenever he asks a question, he sounds like he wasn't listening. But Sam just sounds interested and smart. He's weirdly proud of the kid for that.

"It's gonna be hard enough to bring you two back, once everything's over and done with," Gabriel says. "We don't need your eternal souls getting separated from each other on top of that. Heaven, in case you haven't guessed, is a pretty big place."

"I guessed," Dean says dryly. He gingerly starts up the car again, pulling back out onto the road so that they can continue their upward climb into the mountains. Only a few hours, and they'll be holing up somewhere safe so that they can die. It's such a bizarre, unrealistic idea (even for him and Sam) that Dean can hardly believe it. But it's real, and it's going to happen.

"There is no need for worry," Castiel says softly. "We are not what we once were, but we will bring you back."

"Great vote of confidence there, Castiel," Gabriel bitches.

Dean nudges the car past sixty. The roads are all empty – he doesn't know if that's because of Heaven's influence or Lucifer's, but he's going to take advantage of it for as long as he can.

Three hours is a long drive when you've got an obnoxious archangel kicking the back of your seat, but Dean deals with it, partially appeased by the huge bag of beef jerky that Sam buys for him at the next gas station, obviously as an apology. Dean's pretty easy to please, and Gabriel eventually decides that annoying Dean is less fun than discussing pagan fertility rites with Sam (seriously? Is that some sort of flirting thing, for them?), and Dean is left to drive in silence, with the weight of Castiel's knowing gaze falling squarely against the back of his head.

"I'm not worried," he says quietly. He doubts that Sam and Gabriel will emerge from their conversation in order to call him on it, but better safe than sorry. The back seat squeaks softly as Castiel leans forward, his lips resting tentatively against the shell of Dean's ear. It's weirdly intimate, especially for such a confined space, and with company, and Dean shivers.

"I believe you," Cas says, even though that's a blatant lie, because no one believes Dean when he says he's fine. But the sentiment is nice, and when Castiel leans back, taking his weight and warmth with him, Dean shivers again, feeling like he's lost something.

They reach Stanley shortly after eleven o'clock: there are only a handful of motels to choose from, and Dean goes with the one that's the least offensive, both smell and decoration wise. It's obviously a tourist town – there are tiny stores boasting carved wooden figurines in the windows, a lot of Native American and cowboy-themed places, trying to take advantage of the unwary visitor. There are more mountains here than Dean has ever seen, ever, and cradled between them are rolling fields of hay, grazing cattle and horses, and small, evergreen forests. It's beautiful. It's peaceful.

Dean thinks that, if nothing else, the scenery will be a lot better than the last time he died.

Gabriel and Castiel are oddly quiet, though Dean realizes fairly quickly that they're trying to be respectful, not distant. They let Sam and Dean unpack their things and get comfortable, even going so far as to help out. Castiel pulls out Dean's clothes (wadded up, for the most part, because Dean often doesn't have the time to properly pack them) and then folds them with the same intensity and precision as he does everything else. It's stupidly sexy, and Dean has to turn away when Castiel starts folding his jeans into the chest of drawers.

Gabriel, meanwhile, helps out by not getting in the way – which, for him, is a pretty big deal. He lounges on the bed while Sam carefully pulls out his laptop and then plugs it in, watching intently. Of all the things that Sam could be worried about, it figures that one of his first priorities is making sure that his computer doesn't run out of power while they're…

While they're gone.

"What will it be like?" Dean asks. At this point, he feels like he has to ask. "I mean…will it be…?"

He can't bring himself to say 'painful.' The memory of sharp claws and fangs dripping with fire and sulfur will never fully fade from his mind. Sam looks at him like he knows, even though he doesn't – he looks at Dean like he's sorry.

"It will be quick," Castiel murmurs, and Dean's almost surprised when a hand settles, hesitantly, on his hip. Castiel isn't normally proprietary, but he crowds closer, as if he hopes his presence can drive away Dean's memories. Not going to work, but Dean appreciates the gesture anyways.

"And painless," Gabriel adds. "Like turning off a switch. There might be some…disconnect, as far as time is concerned."

"You are already familiar with this," Castiel says to Dean. "Depending on how long you remain, it may feel like days or even weeks have passed, when only hours have passed for your physical bodies. Do not…worry, over it." Castiel leans forward, presses a quick, dry kiss to Dean's cheek. Sam makes a gagging sound and turns away, while Dean decides that, later on, they're going to need to have a serious talk about public displays of affection. He's all for them, but not fucking sappy ones. "We shall guard your bodies to the best of our abilities."

"Damn straight I'm guarding your body," Gabriel mutters. Dean's pretty sure he sees some lightning fast grope-action out of the corner of his eye; he blocks it from his mind pretty quickly, because…seriously, gross. "No one's getting in it but me."

"Dude," Dean and Sam protest at the same time.

"Not appropriate," Sam chastises. "I can't even begin to tell you how not appropriate that is."

"I need a drink," Dean laments. "Or five. Ten." He touches the back of Castiel's hand, and then decides that, if he's going to die (no matter how peaceful the angels say it's going to be, that doesn't change the fact that they're dying), then he's damn well going to die comfortably. He sits on the edge of his bed, unlacing his boots and then kicking them off – he'll worry about finding them again when (if) he comes back. Next he shrugs off his jacket, tossing it over the edge of the bed and letting it hang there while he stretches and gets himself as comfortable as he possibly can. Sam, after a moment, of deliberation, starts doing the same thing – taking off his shoes, toeing off his socks (Sam, unlike Dean, radiates heat, and so his feet don't get cold at night, the jackass).

Gabriel and Castiel just stand there, silent, watching. Dean thinks it should feel weird, having a couple of angels watch them pull off their outer layers and make themselves comfortable…but, considering that these are the two angels who are going to make sure they come back to life, and considering how they've all tied themselves together…Dean doesn't mind.

"So," Dean says, resting his head back against a pillow that's just a shade too soft to be totally comfortable. "Let's get it over with."

"It can wait," Castiel says, "Until you have…eaten, and bathed. If you need more time to prepare…"

"It can't wait," Gabriel counters. "Zachariah knows something is up. I don't know if he's working with Hadraniel or not, but he's sent out the Heavenly equivalent of the secret service to find us. We can't delay finding the last relic. Unless you want to go and gank another archangel for their sword, this is the only way to make sure Lucifer doesn't…"

Gabriel trails off, and Dean can see Sam nodding out of the corner of his eye. They've had this discussion before – even though Gabriel is an archangel, his sword has been lost for decades. Even he doesn't know where it is, anymore. And the longer they sit around on their asses twiddling their thumbs, the more time Zachariah has to find them.

The more time Lucifer has to mount a counterattack. They've been lucky, so far, but they can't expect their luck to hold out forever.

"Then let's do this," Sam says. Gabriel makes a sound that Dean strongly suspects is the annoying archangel version of 'worried,' but all he can focus on is Castiel leaning over him, Castiel's palm hot and dry against the curve of his jaw.

"I will bring you back. Follow the road, Dean," Castiel murmurs, and leans down, pressing a soft, chaste kiss to Dean's lips.

Everything goes dark.

~

Sam wakes up, but not the way he normally wakes up. Normally, when Sam opens his eyes in the morning, there's only a brief moment of disorientation before he's completely aware of his surroundings – hunting does that to you. You don't even get to wake up like a normal person.

But now, when he opens his eyes, he finds that the edges of things are blurry for far longer than they should be.

Eventually, the smears of color resolve themselves into proper shapes, and Sam realizes something else: he's no longer lying down, and he isn't in the motel room.

It's a sitting room – a place that's obviously meant for entertaining guests, judging by the crisp newness of the couch and chairs. The art hung on the walls is tasteful without being tacky, and a bookshelf against the far wall is decorated with curios made of wrought iron and delicately folded silver: graceful curves of metal that are meant to evoke images of deer, and birds, and cats. The books themselves all have titles like Five Easy Steps to Emotional Well-Being and No Stress, No Mess: How to Help Your Child Overcome Adversity.

Somewhere in Sam's head, he recognizes that this house is normal. That these are books that people are supposed to read, not arcane texts about vampires and demons. And yet, he can't shake the feeling that it's…off, somehow.

"Weird dream," he says aloud, and is surprised when the words actually leave his mouth. He usually doesn't have exceptionally lucid dreams.

Sam closes his eyes, breathing in. The whole house smells like cranberries, turkey, apple cider and eggnog. But there's something else, just beneath those smells – something infinitely more familiar. Bleach? Some kind of harsh cleaning product, and motel sheets, and…

Remember, Sam. Follow the road.

"Sam?"

He opens his eyes again. There's a girl, standing right next to him – she can't be much older than eleven or twelve, and she's just as intensely familiar as that elusive smell, though it takes Sam a moment to place her: Stephanie Martin. The girl who had been, quite possibly, his first date ever.

The memory comes rushing back – Thanksgiving of 1994, the first real Thanksgiving Sam had ever attended. They'd been holed up in a small town in Minnesota because Dean had broken his arm, and Sam had been blessed with enough time to make some actual attachments at school. When Stephanie Martin had invited him to her house for Thanksgiving, Sam had jumped at the chance – not just because Stephanie was cute, and smart, and sweet, but because Sam had never known anything besides a bucket of extra crispy from KFC and his father, passed out in front of the television.

"Sam, Dad's getting ready to carve the turkey! You want to come and sit down? He said you could even help, if you want."

"Uh, yeah," Sam says, shaking his head. He follows Stephanie into the kitchen, where the smell of stuffing and pie is strongest. He's somewhat disturbed by the fact that he isn't eleven, in this dream, but still twenty-seven. He's taller than Stephanie's father, a man that Sam only vaguely remembers in his waking life, but whom his subconscious has apparently held on to.

"Have a seat, Sammy," Mr. Martin says – Sam shoves down the unease he feels at being called 'Sammy' by anyone other than Dean, and gingerly seats himself at the kitchen table. Stephanie immediately drops down into the chair next to him, and stealthily squeezes his thigh when her mother and father aren't looking. Sam jumps, the feeling that something is off growing stronger. It's a good dream, a good memory, but he has the feeling that he just…isn't supposed to be here.

Follow the road.

"So, Sam!" A plate clanks as it's set down in front of him. Sam watches Mr. Martin pile a few slices of turkey breast and a drumstick on it, while Mrs. Martin reaches for the mashed potatoes and starts doling them out. "Stephanie tells me that you're a science whiz. Me, I was never too interested in science…well, except for the science of wooing my wife."

"Dad," Stephanie complains, and her parents smile at each other from across the table.

This is what a real family dinner is like, Sam realizes. This is what I missed out on.

He's surprised by how not impressed he is – all Sam can think of is that he wishes Gabriel were here with him. And Dean, because Dean likes mashed potatoes and gravy, and Castiel, of course, because wherever Dean goes, Castiel is quick to follow…

"Sam?"

That definitely isn't Stephanie's voice. Sam glances up from his plate; Dean is standing in the doorway to the kitchen, his expression a combination of mirth and confusion. He, unlike Sam, is dressed in his usual jacket and jeans.

"Wow," he says. "Just…wow."

Sam frowns. "What are you doing in my dream?"

"Yeah, about that." Dean takes a step closer, waving his hand in front of Mr. Martin's face. The man keeps talking – he doesn't acknowledge Dean at all. And when Sam stands up, he continues to hold a conversation with the empty chair. It's like watching a video, and Sam shakes his head.

"Looks like Cas and Gabriel managed to pull it off," Dean says. Sam watches him absently pick at the edge of his jacket while his brain tries to process everything that's happening.

I'll be here when you wake up, kiddo.

"Gabriel," he croaks, and flinches when he feels a solid weight around his wrist, something he's sure wasn't there before – when he glances down, it's the Nehushtan, a warm and electric coil, the tiny etched eyes gleaming. "So, that means we're…"

"Dead," Dean says cheerfully. "Gotta say, though, if this is the SkyMall, it sucks. Where are the triplets and latex? A guy has needs, you know. Unless your needs are just pathetic. That I can understand."

"This was my first real Thanksgiving," Sam says absently, and then shakes his head. "Something's…off, though. I don't know what."

"Hey, we had plenty of Thanksgivings."

Sam shakes his head again – he doesn't feel like fighting over what holidays they did or did not properly celebrate. "Not the time, Dean. Hey…when Castiel…y'know." Killed you. "Did he say anything?"

Dean looks at him oddly. "Uh…yeah, actually. He told me to follow the road. That's how I got here…I had the Impala, and I just…drove. And eventually I ended up here."

"Gabriel said that, too," Sam muses. The Martins continue to talk quietly at the table, responding to a Sam that hasn't been there for seventeen years. "Follow the road. Are we supposed to keep driving, then? Now that we're not separated anymore?"

"No fucking clue," Dean says. For a guy who's dead, he's pretty cheerful. Sam wonders what Dean's heaven was .

like…if it was something that he wanted, or just a happy memory. Knowing Dean, there were probably double-jointed strippers involved.

"Gabriel said that the Garden is at the center of the actual Kingdom of Heaven," Sam muses. "I guess the road will take us there. Come on, then, the sooner we get the Sword, the better."

Dean opens his mouth…and the lights flicker. They both glance up at the same time as the whole house grows dim, the darkness of the night outside seeming to seep through the walls.

"Tell me this is part of your memory," Dean says, and Sam wordlessly shakes his head. Something's coming – they can both feel it, like being able to sense an oncoming storm. The air is suddenly thick with the smell of ozone and rain. The Nehushtan burns, and Sam grabs hold of Dean's arm and hauls him back from the windows just as the dimness is pierced by a light so strong it puts the sun to shame, a light completely devoid of color. It's nothing but an endless white searchlight, and it sweeps over the house while Sam hurriedly yanks Dean the windowless living room.

"Dude," Dean snaps, "what the fuck was that?"

"I'm betting it's something we don't want to find us," Sam murmurs. He isn't sure if keeping his voice down will help or not, but he figures that it can't hurt.

The TV abruptly turns on, belching static. Sam prepares to yank Dean into the nearest cupboard or bathroom, just in case that light comes back, but Dean seems significantly less concerned this time around – a moment later, Sam sees why. The television isn't just producing static; it's showing a grainy, half-fuzzed image of Castiel's face. Heaven just keeps getting weirder and weirder.

"Dean," Castiel's disembodied head says, voice cutting in and out. "You must…follow the road. Zachariah is…"

Dean hits the top of the televison, scowling, but Castiel's mouth continues to move without producing sound, static blurring his face. Sam scowls – hitting electronics rarely helps – and then carefully restrains Dean from hitting the television again. Castiel purses his lips, and then leans forward slightly.

"Find the Garden," he says, voice clear for a brief moment. "Gabriel and I are waiting for you."

The television turns off, and the room is once again silent, save for the muffled sound of conversation coming from the kitchen.

"Huh," Dean says. "So I'm guessing that light was…Zachariah? Or one of his goons, anyways."

"Well, it's gone, whatever it was. Come on, Dean, let's leave before anything else happens."

"That might be a problem," Dean murmurs. He's poked his head through the doorway to the entry hall – judging by the way he's standing, Sam guesses that he's trying to look out the windows on either side of the front door. Sam crowds against him, peering over Dean's shoulder.

The windows are entirely black.

There are no trees. No stars – no night sky at all. The Impala is gone, and, even if it were still there, there's no longer a road for it to drive on. Sam gapes for a moment, snapping out of it when Dean roughly prods his arm.

"That's…that's not good," he says hesitantly.

"No shit, Sherlock. How are we supposed to follow the road if there isn't one?"

"We just have to keep looking," Sam suggests. "I mean, this is Heaven. It probably doesn't work the way we assume it does. What if it's not an actual road?"

"What else would it be? A picture or something?"

Sam blinks, and the Nehushtan grows warm around his wrist as he points just over Dean's shoulder, at the toy racetrack that has appeared in the middle of the living room.

"How about that?"

Dean gives him a long look – something between disbelief and amusement – but, after a moment, he kneels down on the floor.

"I remember this," he says slowly, picking up the tiny toy car and examining it before setting it down on the track. "I had this toy when I was a kid. Same car and everything."

He draws the car back, and Sam's breath hitches as the Nehushtan grows so warm as to almost be uncomfortable.

Dean lets the car go, and the house blurs around them.

~

A 'blur' is a good way to describe most of Heaven. The place is a labyrinth of memories, some of them Sam's and some of them Dean's…and not all of them are happy. Sure, they're all good memories – like the time that Dean had sat in the kitchen, eating his crustless peanut butter and jelly sandwich while his mother talked to his father on the phone…but almost all of them are tinged with regret, or realizations that he (they, because Sam is going through the same thing) had been unable to recognize when he'd been a kid. Like how John and Mary hadn't been talking, they had been fighting, to name one of many.

The 'road' is hidden in many of the places they wander into – in pictures, in books, in postcards – but it's always obvious when they pass from one memory to another. Dean feels like he should be surprised by how many of Sam's 'good' memories involve leaving his family – his temporary home in Flagstaff, the night he left for Stanford…but, the truth is, Sam has never seen family the same way Dean has. And Dean knows it, he just…doesn't want to admit it.

Sam gives the memory of his old dog one more affectionate pat on the head while Dean looks on, and then he slowly straightens up.

"All of this should be making me happy," he says quietly. "But it isn't. I don't know…no matter where we go, something feels wrong."

"Probably because Heaven's being run by a bunch of douchebags," Dean offers. "Come on. The road's outside, let's get moving."

Dean opens the door to Sam's apartment and steps outside.

The world is flooded with light.

It's not sunlight – it's that same harsh, white light from before, like a billion searchlights have turned on all at once, and Dean barely has enough time to get his arm up to shield his eyes before the light starts to fade, and someone in front of him says, "Oh, Dean. I expected better than this."

A fist connects with his stomach, solid enough that it might as well be made of steel, and Dean doubles over, breath punching out of him in a great gasp.

He'd recognize that smug voice and that douchey suit anywhere.

"Zachariah," he croaks, and the fist digs in harder, like it's trying to plow through his guts and straight out his spine. Sam makes a noise, some awful, angry noise as Zachariah grabs hold of the back of Dean's neck, hauling him up like a rag doll.

"You know, you've been causing me a lot of trouble," Zachariah says, almost conversationally, like they're discussing the fucking weather or something. Dean exhales, hard, and a fine spray of blood mists across the angel's cheek. He wipes it away with a grimace of disgust.

"Sam, run," Dean tries to get out – he receives another blow to the gut for his trouble.

"Your brother isn't going anywhere," Zachariah says quietly. Dean risks a glance to the side – Sam looks like he's straining against something, every muscle tense, but his feet aren't moving, and he isn't speaking. "I'll admit, it was clever of you to have those…" Zachariah's expression twists into a moue of distaste. "…renegade angels act as a distraction, but the game ends here, gentlemen. We can't have you running around Heaven unattended…who knows what sort of unpleasant situations you might find yourself in? And you can't say 'yes' to Michael and Lucifer if you're dead."

Zachariah shakes him, and Dean winces – he can feel something in his neck straining, but never quite breaking. He supposes you can't die of a broken neck when you're already dead.

"But before I send you on your way…I thought we should have a little chat." Zachariah lifts his free hand, and then briefly touches it to Dean's temple – briefly, but even that short touch hurts. It feels like Zachariah is reaching inside of him and twisting at his guts, but it's somehow worse than physical pain. Like he's wringing out Dean's soul, and he feels, distantly, something like an echo – pain that isn't his own. Cas.

"You son of a bitch," he grits out, and Zachariah punches him again…but, blessedly, the pain stops.

"Let me tell you something," Zachariah hisses. "Before you two came along, I was on the fast track. Employee of the month, every month, forever. I'd walk the halls of Heaven and people would avert their eyes! I had respect! And then they assigned me to you. Now look at me. I can't close the deal on a couple of pathetic, flannel-wearing maggots? Everybody's laughing at me. And they're right to do it. So, say yes, don't say yes… I'm still gonna take it out of your asses. It's personal now, boys. And the last person in the history of creation you want as your enemy is me…And I'll tell you why. Lucifer may be strong, but I'm petty. I'm gonna be the angel on your shoulder for the rest of eternity."

He moves as if to touch Dean's temple again, and Dean screws his eyes shut, preparing for that awful, distant pain – he hopes Castiel is all right. That Gabriel is taking care of him.

The pain never comes.

"Excuse me, sir," a soft voice says. "But I need to speak to these two."

Zachariah's grip eases, and, behind him, Sam takes in a huge, gasping breath. Jesus, was Zachariah choking him? That whole time?

"I'm in a meeting," Zachariah snaps. Dean tries to turn his head, to get a better look at whoever is interrupting the Dean Winchester Torture Hour, but he can't move his neck, and all he can see is Zachriah's pissed-off face.

"It's a bad time, I know, but I do need to talk to these boys. Orders from above."

"What? You're lying."

"Wouldn't lie about this," the voice says mildly. "Look, I understand that you're busy, but these orders come from the boss Himself. Sooner or later, he's going to come home…and you know how he is about that whole 'wrath' thing."

Zachariah makes the ugliest face that Dean has ever seen on something man-shaped, his expression caught halfway between impotent rage and something that Dean thinks looks uncomfortably close to hatred. Slowly, Zachariah loosens his grip, until Dean's feet touch the ground again and he's left gasping for air that, technically, he doesn't need. Behind him, Sam takes another deep breath and says, "What the hell?"

Zachariah is gone. And, standing in his place, is an older man wearing a thick, long-sleeved shirt, and a jacket over that. He has a trowel tucked into his belt, and he's…smiling, a little.

A smile, in Dean's experience, isn't something you should always be overjoyed to see. He gingerly touches his neck as Sam moves to stand beside him, surprised to find that nothing hurts. The only evidence that Zachariah ever touched him is his own memory of it. And, considering what angels can do, Dean probably can't even trust that, anymore.

"You boys have come an awful long way," the man says. "My name is Joshua. I doubt you've heard of me."

Dean stares. Sam rubs irritably at his throat, like he can still feel whatever it was that was keeping him from speaking. Joshua (he doesn't exactly look like an angel, but Dean's suspicious all the same) stares back at them, his shoulders loose and at ease, his expression serene. After a moment, he sighs quietly, and then brushes past Sam, heading for the front door of Sam's temporary apartment.

"No point in standing around waiting," Joshua chastises. "We've got to get you back on your way. The Garden is through here, gentlemen. Step on through."

He pushes open the door to the apartment – there's nothing beyond it except for a soft, white light. It's nothing like the light of Zachariah, but Dean grabs hold of Sam's arm just the same. Luckily, Sam doesn't seem too keen on going through the door, either.

"I know you boys are twice shy," Joshua says patiently. "But you aren't going to find that Sword you're looking for unless you step through this door. That's just the way it is."

"Dean," Sam murmurs. "He…did stop Zachariah. I'm not saying we should trust him, just…"

"Yeah, yeah," Dean says. "Either follow the road forever, or follow this guy. Just…let me go through, first."

"Dean."

Dean ignores Sam's pissy expression, nudging him out of the way as he approaches the open door. The light is…surprisingly soothing. Dean wonders if that's a trick, too. But it's not like he has any choice.

"Not all of Heaven is out to get you, Dean Winchester," Joshua says softly. "You need look no further than your bondmate to see that."

"Don't ever mention Cas again," Dean snarls. "You people are the reason why he's getting weaker. You have no right to even say his name anymore."

Joshua solemnly inclines his head, and Dean straightens his jacket, and then steps into the light.

~

Sam steps through the doorway after Dean, shielding his eyes against the bright light that Joshua has led them into – it isn't harsh, but it's…it sounds stupid, because light doesn't have texture, but it feels thick. Like pushing through a vat of molasses, but, when Sam emerges from the other side, he feels…bizarrely clean. Like he's finally left behind that 'wrong' feeling that had been plaguing him in each and every memory.

The light fades, and Sam is standing in a garden.

He isn't entirely sure if it's the Garden (though he suspects it is), because the whole place is vaguely familiar. A dry stream meanders through it, the round stones dotting the bed almost reminiscent of water. The whole place smells green and alive. A few feet away, Dean is absently touching the hem of his jacket, glancing around.

Behind them, Joshua clears his throat. When Sam turns to look, the door to his apartment in Flagstaff is gone.

"Welcome to the Garden, boys," Joshua says quietly.

"This is Heaven's Garden?" Dean asks. "It's…nice. I guess."

"Dean," Sam says reproachfully. The angels might be dicks, but insulting someone's home while you're standing in it is generally not a good idea.

"People see what they want to, here," Joshua explains. "Some people see God's throne room, others see Eden itself. For you two…I believe this is the Cleveland Botanical Gardens. You came here on a field trip."

"Yeah, hate to interrupt," Dean says, and Sam takes a step forward, reaching for his brother's arm, just in case he needs to physically keep Dean from punching people. And by 'people' he means 'Joshua,' who might look like an old man, but who probably has the tensile strength of a sheet of steel roughly a million feet thick. "But we aren't here to sightsee. You said the Sword was here, now where is it?"

"Patience," Joshua says. "First, I have a message for you. I wasn't just saying that to Zachariah to get him to leave."

"A message," Dean repeats, and something in Sam's head…clicks.

Orders from above, Joshua had said. Conceivably, he could be talking about Michael, but…

"A message from God?" Sam asks, ignoring Dean's derisive snort.

"The head honcho Himself," Joshua agrees. He gingerly bends down, gently adjusting the nodding head of a flower. "He might not be making himself available, but he has been keeping an eye on things. And that includes you, and your bondmates. Now, he hasn't said anything explicitly…but I get the feeling that he's proud of you for. Of Gabriel and Castiel, in particular. Those two have come even farther than you boys have."

"If He's so proud of us, then why isn't He doing anything?" Sam argues. "Why hasn't He stopped Lucifer? Why is He letting Zachariah run things? He could stop all of this!"

"I suppose he could," Joshua muses. "But he won't."

"Why," Dean says, but he sounds…resigned. Like he knows he isn't going to get an answer. Sure enough, Joshua shrugs.

"Why does He allow evil in the first place? You could drive yourself nuts asking questions like that. The important part is that this whole mess is no longer His problem. He's stepped in before, more than you even know. He put you on that plane. He brought back Castiel. It's more than He's intervened in a long time, and now He's done. And now it's up to you."

"Save it," Dean snaps. "I get it. God's gonna sit on his ass and watch the world burn because he's too chickenshit to set things straight. Just another dead-beat Dad with a bunch of excuses, right? Well, I'm used to that. I'll muddle through."

"Dean," Sam murmurs, and his brother stiffens, shoulders tight. Dean's expression is contorted into something like agony, and it resonates through Sam in ways that he's sure it wouldn't have as little as a year ago. Things have changed, between them. Sam isn't sure if they'll eventually go back to the way things were before, but…he hopes not. This way, he doesn't have anything to hide from Dean.

This way, they just might save the world.

"You will," Joshua says softly. "You boys always do. I can see why He took such an interest in you. But now you're on your own."

"We've only ever been on our own," Sam says. And then, "Please. We need that Sword."

"Ah." Joshua seems to pause, as if thinking. "Right, I suppose you do."

And then he reaches into his pocket, and pulls out the amulet that Sam once gave Dean for Christmas. The amulet that Dean gave to Castiel.

Dean makes a sound like he's considering homicide, and Joshua raises his hand.

"What you call a sword," he explains, "isn't a sword so much as it is a manifestation of Heaven itself. What you're seeing is not what it will remain as…This is a weapon that was never meant for human hands." Joshua carefully pulls a handkerchief from her other pocket, and then painstakingly wraps it around the amulet, until the whole thing is covered, and not even a bit of metal glints through. "So I guess you could say it's confused. It senses the Grace of an angel, wrapped up in the soul of a human, and so it's chosen a form that means something to the both of you. I'm sure it will change its mind once you've brought it back with you."

"You act like it's alive," Dean says, but he holds out his hand, expectant, until Joshua drops the cloth-wrapped amulet into his palm. Joshua's mouth quirks in a slow smile.

"Is it not? You're holding a small portion of Heaven itself, Dean. It doesn't exactly play by humanity's rules."

Dean closes his fingers around the amulet, jaw clenched.

"Whatever," he says. Sam can see that's he's gritting his teeth, too. Not exactly the best sign. "Come on, Sammy. Let's find a way to get back to Cas and Gabe. I'll bet they're worried."

"That won't be necessary," Joshua says. "After the poor welcome you were given, the least I can do is see to it that your bondmates don't need to expend any more of their energy."

Sam blinks. "You would do that?" Dean, however, doesn't look so thankful – he's gripping the amulet so tight that his knuckles are beginning to turn white. Joshua only raises his hand, weathered face creasing into a small smile.

"It's about all I can do," he says. "Now, the way this works, you won't remember most of what's happened, same as always. But I just want to tell you boys right now…Sometimes, things are the opposite of what they seem."

"Wait," Dean says, "what do you mean 'same as always?' And that things aren't what they seem?"

"Joshua," Sam says. There's a tremor in his voice that he isn't used to hearing. "Have we been here before?"

Joshua's smile grows wider; the palm of his hand begins to exude a bright light, the same gentle radiance that they had stepped through in order to reach the Garden. Sam lifts his arm to shield his eyes, and…

…And he wakes up. Gabriel's concerned face hovers only a few inches from his own. Sam blinks, and then realizes, abruptly, that he isn't breathing.

And then Gabriel touches his chest, and he drags in a huge, whooping gasp of a breath, fills his lungs until he's sure he's going to burst, and then lets it all whoosh out of him in a rush. A few feet away, he can hear Dean doing the exact same thing while Castiel murmurs something low, soothing.

The room is filled with light. Not sunlight, or light from a bulb, but something softer. Like moonlight. Sam forces himself to sit up, still gasping for air, and Gabriel leans back.

"I take it you were successful," Gabriel says, and Sam glances at Dean's bed, just to reassure himself that his brother is breathing again…that they're both alive.

Dean is holding a sword.

Or rather, he has a sword laying next to him, half on and half off the bed, and Castiel has his fingers curled around Dean's wrist, obviously keeping him from touching it. The blade itself is…small. Maybe only twenty-six or twenty-seven inches long, not including the hilt, which is wrapped in a handkerchief. The light that Sam had thought was moonlight is actually coming from the sword – not any one part of the sword, but all of it. Like the whole thing is made of starlight. Sam touches his chest, feeling his heart slowly calming down.

"That Sword is not meant for human hands," Castiel says gravely, and something in Sam's head…twists a little. Like there's something he should remember…but, for the life of him, he can't put his finger on what.

Sometimes, things are the opposite of what they seem.

Sam shakes his head, and Gabriel gently touches his shoulder.

"I don't know if it's God or Michael or someone else entirely," Gabriel says gravely, "But someone up there likes you. Me and Castiel didn't even have to lift a finger to bring you back. What happened up there?"

"Don't remember," Dean grunts. "There was a lot of light. Noise. But beyond that? Nothing?"

"Someone was there," Sam adds. "Someone helped us. I can't remember who."

"It's more than I've got," Dean says, gingerly sitting up. They both watch as Castiel picks up the Sword, carefully removing the handkerchief and fitting his hand around the hilt. The glow strengthens in response, until Gabriel whistles, low and impressed, and Dean looks like he's about to start ripping Castiel's clothes off right then and there.

"Hate to interrupt," Gabriel says, "but we've sort of got a problem."

"Jesus Christ," Dean groans.

"No, although the Second Coming would be a bad sign, at this point. I'm talking about Lucifer."

"We've got all the relics," Sam interrupts. The Nehushtan is warm around his wrist. "All we have to do is...is beat him, right?" Which, of course, is easier said than done, but…they're almost there.

Except Gabriel is shaking his head.

"We have our secret weapon, Lucifer has his," Gabriel says firmly. "I'm sure you remember the Horsemen."

"Jesus Christ," Dean says again, and falls back flinging one arm over his eyes. Sam bites his lower lip.

"We dealt with War and Famine," Sam says slowly. "Which leaves…"

"Pestilence and Death," Castiel murmurs. He closes his eyes, and the light of the sword dims. A moment later, the blade starts to retract, sliding back down into the hilt like one of those fake knives. Sam has to admit, that's pretty handy.

"Pestilence and Death," Gabriel agrees. "And in about a week, they're going to be riding out to Detroit."

Oh, I think it'll happen in about six months. I think it'll happen…in Detroit.

Sam closes his eyes. "Detroit," he repeats quietly.

"Sam," Dean says, but Sam shakes his head, and then heaves himself off the bed, finding his footing. His legs are a little wobbly, but he can stand all right.

"We need to get there before them," he says, awkwardly kneeling beside the bed in order to pull his duffel out from underneath. "One thing at a time. Once we get rid of Lucifer, we'll deal with the Horsemen."

"Sam," Dean says again. "Just…calm down. We just came back from the dead, man. And we have a week, right?"

"Sam is right," Castiel murmurs. "It is imperative that we reach Detroit before Death. Pestilence can be dealt with. Death…cannot. So long as Lucifer controls Death, we are in danger."

Sam grabs his duffel, hauling it up onto the bed. Gabriel watches him, looking…Sam isn't sure, but he thinks Gabriel might look a little sad.

"So it's like I said. We get rid of Lucifer, and then we deal with the Horsemen. And since we only have a week to do it, we need to get going. Now."

"Hope this works," Dean says, pushing himself up off the bed and grabbing for his own duffel. "Otherwise, we're screwed."

"It'll work," Sam says. Gabriel touches his arm, and the Nehushtan seems to grow faintly warmer…like it's responding to the archangel's presence.

"It has to."


End file.
